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A convicted child sex offender mistakenly released from prison after arriving in the UK in a small boat was given £500 of public money as he was deported back to Ethiopia.
Hadush Kebatu was flown back to his home country on Tuesday night with the discretionary payment after raising the possibility of challenging his removal shortly before he was due to be placed on a plane.
The Ethiopian national, who had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman, had been wrongly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre, triggering a two-day search.
He was removed to his home country on Tuesday night with five escorts on the flight, and arrived on Wednesday morning with no right to return to Britain, the Home Office said.
Kebatu’s case has come to symbolise the helplessness of the UK to control irregular migration and chaos within the criminal justice system.
The payment was approved by officials, not ministers, as an operational decision on Tuesday as they prepared to remove Kebatu, who had expressed a wish to return to Ethiopia when he was convicted.
Downing Street said he had attempted to apply for a “facilitated return scheme”, which under successive governments has offered foreign nationals resettlement grants of up to £1,500, but the attempt was denied.
“However, given Kebatu threatened to disrupt the flight, an operational decision was taken to facilitate his return,” the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.
The decision was taken by officials as the alternative was a slower and more expensive process, which would have included detention, a new flight and potentially fighting subsequent legal claims. The costs of cancelling the flight would have run into several thousands of pounds.
“Forcible” returns do not usually involve payments, but removal teams can decide to make a discretionary payment to ensure things go smoothly. The concern was that it would cost much more to re-book the flights – running into several thousands of pounds – and it might have led to expensive legal action.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said she shared the public’s anger over his release and had “pulled every lever” to remove Kebatu from British soil, but opposition MPs said his deportation did not excuse the fiasco.
The move was described by the Conservatives as an “absolute disgrace”. Kemi Badenoch’s spokesperson said: “We have said we need to leave the ECHR (European convention on human rights) and deport all foreign criminals as soon as possible, and we certainly shouldn’t be giving them taxpayers’ money to leave our country.”
An asylum-seeker who crossed the Channel on a small boat on 29 June, Kebatu was housed in Epping. Eight days after his arrival, he made sexually explicit remarks to a 14-year-old girl who was eating a pizza with her friend in Epping town centre.
The next day, he sexually assaulted a woman, trying to kiss her. He also tried to kiss the same 14-year-old girl he had made remarks to the day before, having encountered her again by chance.
The allegations sparked public disorder outside the hotel in Epping, which became a flashpoint between far -right activists and anti-racism campaigners. It also led to protests outside hotels across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Kebatu was found guilty of two sexual assaults, harassing the girl, inciting her to engage in sexual activity and an attempted sexual assault and was sentenced to 12 months in prison in September followed by deportation. At his trial, Kebatu said he wished to be deported.
He was released from prison on Friday morning by mistake when he was supposed to be removed to an immigration detention centre.
At the entrance of the prison, Kebatu was observed by a delivery driver returning to the prison multiple times over an hour and a half, in a “confused” state, only to be turned away. He reportedly told prison officers that he was supposed to be deported, but was told to go towards the town centre.
Police officers eventually pointed him towards the train station, reports claimed. He was captured on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park, north London.
Kebatu’s wrongful release has been “hugely damaging to public trust” and people deserve a “full answer” as to how the blunder happened, Marie Goldman, the MP for Chelmsford, has said.
David Lammy, the justice secretary, has announced an inquiry and blamed “human error” for the incident. A discharging manager has been suspended from duties while the inquiry concludes.
Goldman, a Liberal Democrat, said: “Whilst I am relieved that this saga is over and Hadush Kebatu has finally been deported, this doesn’t excuse the catastrophic failures that led to this point.
“It is utterly unacceptable that public safety was put at risk. This was a grave mistake, and my constituents now deserve a full answer as to how such a serious failure was allowed to happen.
“The findings of the independent investigation into what happened must not be brushed aside. This has been hugely damaging to public trust. We cannot afford another blunder on such a scale.”
