At least four prisoners released the wrongdoing at large, the BBC was told

At least four prisoners who were wrongly released are at large, the BBC has been told.

These are some 262 prisoners in England and Wales who were wrongly released in the year to this morning last year.

The new information comes as the government is under increasing pressure after several high-profile cases of wrongly released prisoners.

An Algerian sex offender who was wrongly released from prison was arrested by police on Friday.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was one of two men who were separately wrongly released from prison in the same week. The two are now back in custody, after William Smith turned himself in on Thursday.

Their releases come after migrant sex offender Hasush Kebatu, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex last month.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Most of the offenders who were released by mistake were quickly brought by the police to get some more out of the community.”

But there is widespread criticism of the government’s handling of the issue.

The unknown prisoners reveal “the emptiness of this government”, Shadoh Secretary Robert Jenrick said.

“It is not left to journalists to find out the facts. [Justice Secretary] David Lammy needs to clear up how many prisoners were accidentally released and how many more. “

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said “every resource” should be available to prisoners.

“It’s a disgrace and an omnishambles. The media shouldn’t take away from the public that the prisoners were accidentally released,” said Jess Brown-Fuller.

In a statement, Lammy said: “We have inherited a prison system in crisis and I am horrified at the rate of releases this is causing.

“I am determined to fix this problem, but there is a mountain that will appear that cannot be done overnight.

“That’s why I ordered new tough release checks, ordering an independent investigation into the systemic failures used in some prisons.”

The revelation that the four inmates are at large after the wrongful release comes hours after Kaddour-Cherif was arrested.

The Algerian national was found by a member of the public in London’s Finbury Park area on Friday morning.

He was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024, related to an incident in March of that year.

He was given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

He left HMP Wandsworth in South London on 29 October, although police say they were not told until Tuesday.

Kaddour-Cherif is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa in 2019, but is at extra stages in the deportation process.

He was released the day after being found not guilty of breaching sex registry requirements – but he still faces other charges and must remain in custody.

Representatives of prison officials said a clerical error meant there was no warrant from the court to hold him, and he was released.

This followed a series of prosecutions and court appearances spanning two years.

William Smith, the second man released from HMP Wandister in the past week, handed himself in on Thursday. He was released on Monday having been sentenced to prison earlier that day.

Prisons have been in a state of crisis for years. The wolf population continues, with the number of staff not keeping up with the number of inmates.

Only a hundred or so places were available in the men’s prison last summer. This is the reason for the government’s emergency release system – where some inmates are released after serving 40% of their sentence, instead of the usual 50%. It was implemented to reduce overcrowding and nearly 40,000 inmates were released under the scheme.

But this also has repercussions on the number of wrong releases.

The government has promised to build more prisons to ease the recovery, with indications that the prison population will continue to grow but it will take time.

Additional Reporting by George Wright