A sex offender’s mistaken release from prison caused his teenage victim “a lot of stress and anxiety,” said his father, who condemned the mistake as “incredibly irresponsible.”
Hadush Kebatu, jailed in September for a year for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, was wrongfully released from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning, rather than an immigration detention centre.
The migrant, who was residing at the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, during the assault, traveled from Chelmsford to London before his arrest on Sunday morning in Finsbury Park.
In a statement read by Shane Yerrell, independent councilor for Epping Forest District Council (EFDC), the victim’s father said his traumatized daughter had slowly regained her confidence after the events.
“Friday’s news has caused him a lot of stress and anxiety,” he said.
“She was afraid she would see him on the road again and that he would recognize her. “I am truly concerned for my daughter’s mental health and well-being due to this assault.
“This man is a real danger to young women and children and for him to be unjustly released and walking the streets freely just four months after committing two sexual assaults, just five weeks after being sentenced, all because of a system failure on Friday, is incredibly irresponsible.”
He said the entire family feels “hugely disappointed and enraged” by the prison, the police, the judicial system and the government.
“Everyone has failed, not just us as a family, but they have failed everyone in the country,” the father said.
“I had to find out from a journalist that my daughter’s attacker was accidentally released that day, and then I was sent pictures and videos of him walking around all day before the police even alerted her mother.
“Later that day when I attended HMP Chelmsford to seek some answers, I was met with hostility and complete indifference to anything I said or asked, totally disrespecting myself and my family.”
The father, who expressed hope that Kebatu would be deported “immediately,” also said he feared the sex offender would hurt someone else.
“If something had happened to another child or woman, that would have fallen on HMP Chelmsford, as well as the police, the justice system and our Labor government,” he said.
The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for comment.
The Bell Hotel, where Kebatu lived before his conviction, became the focal point of demonstrations and counter-protests over the summer following his criminal charges, which eventually led to demonstrations outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country.
A group of around 60 protesters carrying union and St George flags gathered outside the Essex hotel on Sunday night.
The Bell Hotel became the focal point of demonstrations and counter-protests over the summer (Lucy North/PA) (PA)
The hotel is at the center of an ongoing High Court battle between EFDC and Somani Hotels, which owns the Bell.
The council is currently waiting to hear whether it has been successful in its bid to obtain a High Court injunction preventing asylum seekers from being housed there.
EFDC launched the legal action claiming that housing asylum seekers there violates planning rules, and the company opposes the claim.
The Home Office intervened in the case and told the court that the council’s proposal was “wrong”.
The Bell has been used to house single adult men since April, and Home Office lawyers told the court it currently houses around 95 people.
It first housed asylum seekers from May 2020 to March 2021 and housed single adult men from October 2022 to April 2024, with no enforcement action taken by the council.
EFDC was granted a temporary injunction in mid-August, but this was overturned in the Court of Appeal later that month.