The chief inspector of prisons has said the recent spate of prisoners being released too early is “a symptom of a system that is close to breaking point”. 

Charlie Taylor’s assessment comes as it is revealed that two prisoners wrongly released last year are still at large, as are two others believed to have been freed in error in June this year.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Taylor said the growing number of mistaken early releases was “embarrassing and potentially dangerous”.

He also put it down to “an overcomplicated sentencing framework” and described it as “a symptom of a system that is close to breaking point”.

He said prison inspections “repeatedly highlight the failure to keep prisons secure, safe and decent, and to provide the sort of activity that will help inmates get work on release”.

In his opinion piece, the chief inspector pointed to successive governments’ responses to the overcrowding crisis in the system, which put pressure on “junior prison staff who repeatedly had to recalculate every prisoner’s release date”.

These calculations, he wrote, had been made harder by a series of early-release schemes brought in by successive governments.

The changes, he said, “increase the likelihood of mistakes and in three years the number of releases in error has gone up from around 50 a year to 262”.

It comes as ministers face mounting pressure over a series of high-profile manhunts, with Justice Secretary David Lammy admitting on Friday there is a “mountain to climb” to tackle the crisis in the prison system.

Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was arrested on Friday after a police search following his release from HMP Wandsworth in south London last week, which Scotland Yard said officers only found out about on Tuesday.

His recapture was partly down to investigative work by Sky’s national correspondent, Tom Parmenter, who tracked Kaddour-Cherif down to Finsbury Park in north London before he handed himself in to police.

Convicted fraudster Billy Smith, 35, handed himself back in on Thursday after being accidentally freed from the same jail on Monday.

Read more on early release crisis:
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It follows the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while living in an asylum hotel. The incidents sparked protests in Epping, Essex.

Prison security checks have been toughened and an independent investigation into mistaken releases launched after the now-deported Ethiopian national was accidentally freed from HMP Chelmsford on 24 October.

A total of 262 inmates were mistakenly let out in the year to March 2025 – a 128% increase on the 115 in the previous 12 months, according to the latest official figures.

Of the total, 90 releases in error were of violent or sex offenders.

Kaddour-Cherif was serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal, but had previously been convicted for indecent exposure.

He is understood to have overstayed his visitor’s visa to the UK after arriving in 2019, and was in the process of being deported.

Asked about the four missing prisoners on Friday, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: “The chaos continues. The government keeps putting the British people at risk and is relentlessly failing victims. Does anyone have confidence in David Lammy?”

Mr Lammy said on Friday: “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.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said releases in error “have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of a justice system crisis inherited by this government”.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it has introduced “mandatory, stronger prisoner release checks to keep our streets safe and protect the public as well as investing record amounts into our courts – including to improve operational assurance.

“We’re also investing billions, reforming sentencing and building the prison places needed to keep the public safe.”