Criticism has been directed at the UK’s immigration system following the inadvertent release of an Ethiopian asylum seeker who had been jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and another woman. This blunder has prompted an urgent manhunt for the escaped offender.
The individual in question, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, was handed a 12-month prison sentence in September, according to a report by Reuters.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed his outrage over Kebatu’s release, describing it as “completely unacceptable,” The Associated Press reported.
Kebatu’s arrest in July led to several weeks of public demonstrations outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, a location used to house migrants situated approximately 20 miles north of London.
In 2023, the Home Secretary revealed that over 400 hotels were being utilized to accommodate asylum seekers, with the daily cost nearing £9 million GBP, equivalent to approximately $11.3 million USD.
Kebatu faced convictions on multiple charges, including two counts of sexual assault, an attempted sexual assault, inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity, and harassment without violence, as reported by Essex Police.
“We share the view of communities nationwide that these hotels must close — including the Bell Hotel in Epping,” UK Foreign Secretary and Labour MP Yvette Cooper wrote in a previous statement. “We are moving to do so as quickly as possible through a structured and sustainable plan, rather than through one-off court rulings that create more problems for other local areas or councils.
“Such piecemeal decisions risk repeating the chaos that led to the large-scale use of hotels in the first place.”
Officials said Kebatu was supposed to be transferred to an immigration detention center for deportation, but was mistakenly freed, according to the report.
People protest outside Epping Forest District Council, after the British government won a court ruling resulting in asylum seekers not being evicted from The Bell Hotel in Epping, Britain. (Reuters/Jack Taylor)
Britain’s Secretary of State for Justice David Lammy wrote in an X post he was “appalled at the release in error at HMP Chelmsford.”
“We are urgently working with the police to track him down, and I’ve ordered an urgent investigation,” Lammy wrote. “Kebatu must be deported for his crimes, not on our streets.”
Kemi Badenoch, conservative member of Parliament for North West Essex, also made a fiery post, saying the “entire system is collapsing under Labour.”
“The fake asylum seeker who sexually assaulted a child in Epping has been ‘released in error,’” Badenoch wrote. “How does that happen? Because the entire system is collapsing under Labour. Govt mistakenly letting people out instead of deporting. Those they deported are coming back. Nothing of substance has been done to address the threat to women and girls living in these communities.”
Protesters react next to police during a protest near Epping Forest District Council, after the British government won a court ruling resulting in asylum seekers not being evicted from The Bell Hotel in Epping, Britain, in August. (Reuters/Jack Taylor)
Badenoch said conservatives voted against Labour’s prisoner release program because it was “putting predators back on our streets,” but pointing out Kebatu was just convicted.
“A level of incompetence that beggars belief,” she wrote. “Only Conservatives have a plan for stronger borders and public order.”
Nigel Farage, member of Parliament for Clacton and Leader of Reform UK, added on X: “The Epping hotel migrant sex attacker has been accidentally freed rather than deported. He is now walking the streets of Essex. Britain is broken.”
