Copyright expressandstar
After being released 'through human error' on Friday, it now appears that a bewildered-lookinofg Kebatu spent an hour remonstrating with prison officers, who insisted he was now a free man, and was directed in the direction of the railway station. It also emerges that 262 other prisoners were released in error in the year to March, a 168 per cent increase on the already appalling figure of 115 for the previous 12 months. That is five prisoners every week are being let out of prison by mistake. How can that be possible? It's not as if Kebatu was any ordinary prisoner, either. He was one of the most high-profile prisoners in the country, who had been sentenced to a year in prison just a few weeks ago. Did nobody think to double check? Even the prisoner himself appeared to know it was a mistake. So far one prison manager has been suspended, with the union saying he is carrying the can for the sloppiness of others. We suspect this probably the case. Were it an isolated case, it might be reasonable to point the figure at individual officers. But when the wrong prisoners are being released on an almost daily basis, it is clearly a systemic failure of the system. Indeed, the chief inspector of prisons said it was an 'endemic problem'l that is 'happening all the time'. What a dreadful indictment of our justice system. Communities Secretary Steve Reed talks about a 'broken system' and blames the previous Conservative government. While by no means absolving the previous administration from its many failings, this really is clutching at straws. If, 15 months into an administration, your government cannot even make sure the correct people are being held and released from prison, what is your government for? Justice Secretary David Lammy has promised an inquiry., but that sounds like kicking the problem into the long grass. What we want to hear, by the time the talking shop actually convenes, is that no more prisoners have been released in error. Not five a week, not two a week, not even one. The question is whether ministers, and the prison service, are up to the job.
