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Justice Secretary David Lammy was under further pressure today as a manhunt was launched for a foreign national who escaped an open prison. Ola Abimbola, who was sentenced to 21-years for offences including kidnap, grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon in public, is being hunted by Sussex Police. The 36-year-old absconded from Ford Prison. It is the latest in a serious of scandals in Britain’s criminal justice system following Wandsworth prison accidentally releasing Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, who is still on the run. William Smith, who was mistakenly released from the same prison after being handed a 45 month sentence for fraud earlier this week, handed himself on Thursday. Prison governors were "hauled over the coals" by Mr Lammy as the manhunts continues, cabinet minister Steve Reed insisted. He defended the Justice Secretary's response to the fiascos as Mr Lammy faced condemnation from within government. Open prisons - known as Category D jails - have minimal security and are traditionally used to house prisoners right at the end of their sentence but overcrowding in high security facilities mean more prisoners are eligible for a transfer to them earlier on in their sentences. Mr Reed said the Government was dealing with a crisis in the criminal justice system it had inherited from the Tories. The Housing Secretary told Times Radio: "The problem is we've got a broken system, and you are going to see failings when you have a broken system. "The key is to make sure we have a digital system so that no prisoner is ever released by mistake. "There is not an acceptable number for this, but the way to fix it is not tittle tattle about David Lammy in the newspapers, it's to get on and do the work and put in the investment that will digitise the system. "David has already had the prison governors in his office yesterday, I imagine they felt pretty hauled over the coals given what's been going on, but he was also making sure that they're getting all the support they need to carry out the much tougher checks that will be required to make sure that the repeats of this are at an absolute minimum." Sir Keir Starmer has also backed Mr Lammy, who is also his deputy, following a disastrous Prime Minister’s Questions performance this week. But one Cabinet minister told The Times that his behaviour - which saw him fail to answer questions about mistaken releases while deputising for the Prime Minister in the Commons - had been "cowardly", and "he should have fronted up and owned it". A senior government source said: "It feels less like a contempt (of Parliament) issue, more just rank incompetence and frankly pretty dodgy." Some 262 inmates released by mistake in the year to March - a 128 per cent increase on 115 in the previous 12 months. Ninety are believed to be violent or sex offenders. Mr Lammy said on Thursday that engineers, analysts and designers will be sent into prisons to roll out technology aimed at reducing human error and modernising the "paper-based" processes that have led to mistaken releases. He announced the new measures after meeting with 11 prison governors at the groundbreaking of a new prison in Gartree, Leicestershire. Mr Lammy told reporters during the visit that he was "not equipped with all the detail" about Kaddour-Cherif's release when he appeared at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. The Justice Secretary repeatedly refused to confirm at Prime Minister's Questions whether any more asylum seekers had been wrongly released since Hadush Kebatu, the now-deported migrant at the heart of protests in Epping, Essex. Mr Lammy said he found out about the mistake on Wednesday morning, but the detail was released just after he had finished PMQs. Stronger security checks were announced for prisons and an independent investigation was launched into releases in error following the blunder in Kebatu's case. The Epping migrant, jailed for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman, was accidentally freed from prison instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre last month. He was later traced and deported. The error brought to light concerns over the rising number of prisoners released in error, as the latest Government figures show 262 prisoners were released in error in the year to March 2025 - The Prison Governors Association (PGA) described releases in error as "neither rare nor hidden", but said on Thursday the scale was "deeply concerning".
