The father of the schoolgirl who was sexually assaulted by an asylum seeker who was accidentally released from prison has said their family are “infuriated” by the blunder.
Hadush Kebatu, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting the 14-year-old and a woman in Epping, Essex, was arrested on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park, north London, after almost 48 hours at large.
Epping Forest councillor, Shane Yerrell, read out a statement on Sunday evening on behalf of the schoolgirl’s father, saying that Kebatu’s release from HMP Chelmsford due to a system failure was “unbelievably irresponsible”.
“As a father, I am completely broken that the man who sexually assaulted my 14-year-old daughter, just four months ago, was accidentally released from prison onto the streets again,” he said in the statement. “The trauma and torment my daughter has suffered since this assault has really hurt myself and my family, she was slowly starting to get some of her confidence back as recently started seeing her closest friends and been back in school.”
The statement continued that the news of his release had caused his daughter so much stress and anxiety that she feared seeing him in the street and being recognised, adding that Kebatu, 41, was “a real danger to young women and children.”
“For him to be wrongly released and walk in the streets freely just four months after carrying out two sexual assaults, only five weeks after being sentenced, all because of a system failure on Friday, is unbelievably irresponsible,” the statement said. Mr Yerrell continued that the family felt “massively let down and infuriated” by the prison, justice system and Labour government.
“They have all failed, not just us as a family, but they have failed everyone in the country.”
The statement revealed that the family found out from a reporter that Kebatu had been accidentally released, before they were sent images and videos of the sex offender walking around throughout the day before the police alerted them. The schoolgirl’s father even attended HMP Chelmsford for answers, where he said he was “greeted with hostility and complete disregard for anything I said or asked, totally disrespecting me and my family.”
The statement called for the immediate deportation of Kebatu, whose crimes sparked major protests and counterprotests outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he was staying, and eventually at hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
Essex Police said Kebatu boarded a London-bound train at Chelmsford at 12.41pm following the error. He was later spotted on CCTV inside a library in Dalston Square, east London, at 6pm that evening as the Metropolitan Police took over the hunt.
On Sunday morning, he was seen at a bus stop by a member of the public, who called the police at 8.03am. He was arrested at 8.19am for being unlawfully at large.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said in a statement on X: “Hadush Kebatu has been arrested and will be deported. Officers have worked quickly and diligently to bring him back into custody. We have ordered an investigation to establish what went wrong.”
Kebatu was jailed for 12 months in September and made the subject of a five-year sexual harm prevention order for five offences, with a judge warning he posed a “significant risk of reoffending”. He was also added to the sex offender register for 10 years.
