The second prisoner on the run has been arrested after being mistakenly released.
The Metropolitan Police said Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian man, was arrested in Islington, north London after being accidentally freed last Wednesday from HMP Wandsworth.
In a statement this afternoon, they wrote: ‘At 11:23hrs on Friday, 7 November a call was received from a member of the public reporting a sighting of a man they believed to be Cherif in the vicinity of Capital City College on Blackstock Road in Islington.
‘Officers responded immediately to the reported sighting and at 11:30hrs detained a man matching Cherif’s description.
‘His identity was confirmed and he was arrested for being unlawfully at large. He was also arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker in relation to a previous incident.
‘He has been taken into police custody. The Prison Service has been informed.’
The Metropolitan Police previously said Kaddour-Cherif, who also goes by Ibrahim, was convicted in November 2024 of indecent exposure relating to an incident in March that year.
He was handed an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
Kaddour-Cherif’s most recent prison sentence was for trespass with intent to steal.
Metro understands he recently appeared in court on a charge of failing to comply with sex offender requirements.
Metro also understands that Kaddour-Cherif is not an asylum seeker and entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa in 2019 but overstayed. He was in the process of being deported when he was accidentally freed from prison.
Footage taken by Sky News this afternoon shows Kaddour-Cherif, wearing glasses, a grey jumper, black headband, dark green trousers and a backpack.
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He is seen being placed in handcuffs by police officers while denying he is Brahim. He later is searched before being placed in the back of the police van.
Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy said: ‘I can confirm Brahim Kaddour-Cherif has been recaptured and is back in custody.
‘My thanks are with the police and staff at HMPPS who have been working around the clock.
‘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.
‘That is why I have ordered new tough release checks, commissioned an independent investigation into systemic failures, and begun overhauling archaic paper-based systems still used in some prisons.’
Another prisoner, Billy Smith, 35, who was also accidentally freed from the same prison on Monday, has since handed himself back in.
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