Sir Keir Starmer is facing mounting criticism after a number of high-profile cases of prisoners were erroneously released from prisons. On Friday, it was revealed that at least four prisoners in the UK who were mistakenly let out are still at large, the BBC reports. This comes after sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif was arrested following a major manhunt. The Algerian national was one of two men separately released by mistake from the London prison.

William Smith, the second man, handed himself in on Thursday, meaning both are now back in custody. Criminal Kaddour-Cherif was serving a sentence at HMP Wandsworth for trespass with intent to steal. He had been convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024, relating to an incident in March of that year. Kaddour-Cherif had been given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

In the year to March, 262 prisoners in England and Wales were released in error, which is an increase by 147 from the previous year.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the unaccounted prisoners highlight “the incompetence of this Government”.

He said: “It shouldn’t be left to reporters to uncover the facts. [Justice Secretary] David Lammy must finally come clean about how many prisoners have been accidentally released and how many are still at large.”

The latest scandals have prompted a new confidence crisis in Sir Keir Starmer’s Government. Just last month, migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu, who assaulted a teenage girl and a woman just days after arriving in the UK illegally, was erroneously released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex.

The Ethiopian national claimed that after he was released, he waited more than three hours outside the prison for what he described as someone who was “responsible” for him.

After a two-day manhunt, he was arrested in a London park before being given £500 from the Home Office to be deported, sparking widespread outrage.

In a statement, Mr Lammy said: “We inherited a prison system in crisis and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing.

“I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.

“That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.”