Algerian sex offender mistakenly released from prison reacts angrily as he's arrested

A foreign sex offender freed in error from Wandsworth prison has been arrested - as Sky News filmed the moment he was detained.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian national, was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth in south London on 29 October.

Sky News approached Kaddour-Cherif moments before his arrest in Finsbury Park, north London, at 11.30am, but he claimed to be someone else.

He was then approached by officers next to a police van and arrested.

One of the officers said Kaddour-Cherif had been identified as the missing prisoner because he had a "distinctive wonky nose".

In the footage, the Algerian was shown shouting to people standing nearby in the street.

An officer then held up a photo of Kaddour-Cherif on a phone, comparing the image to the man arrested.

When officers asked him whether he knew why he was being arrested, Kaddour-Cherif replied: "I don't know."

Kaddour-Cherif, who was wearing a grey hoodie, black beanie and black backpack, said the mix-up at the prison was the fault of the authorities who released him.

"It's not my f***ing fault", Kaddour-Cherif shouted.

The Prison Service informed the Metropolitan Police about the error six days later - and a huge manhunt for him was launched.

It is not yet clear why it was nearly a week between the release at HMP Wandsworth and the police being informed that an offender was at large.

"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 on Blackstock Road in Islington," a Met Police spokesperson said.

"Officers responded immediately and at 11.30am 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 unrelated incident. He has been taken into police custody. The Prison Service has been informed."

Kaddour-Cherif is a registered sex offender who was convicted of indecent exposure in November last year, following an incident in March.

At the time, he was given a community order and placed on the sex offenders register for five years.

He was then subsequently jailed for possessing a knife in June.

Kaddour-Cherif came to the UK legally and is not an asylum seeker, but it is understood he overstayed his visit visa and deportation proceedings had been started.

He was accidentally freed five days after the wrongful release of convicted sex offender Hadush Kebatu. Both Kaddour-Cherif and Kebatu were arrested in Finsbury Park.

A third man, fraudster William Smith, 35, was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth on 3 November, but turned himself in on Thursday.

After Kaddour-Cherif's arrest, Justice Secretary David Lammy admitted there was a "mountain to climb" to tackle the crisis in the prison system.

"We inherited a prison system in crisis and I'm appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing," he said.

"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."

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