sex offender accidentally released from hmp wandsworth arrested eight miles away

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif is now back in police custody after being missing for several days (Picture: Sky News/PA)

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.’

BREAKING: Exclusive Sky News footage shows Algerian sex offender,Brahim Kaddour-Cherif,being arrested after he was mistakenly released from prison.https://t.co/m8pyR8BfvB📺 Sky 501,Virgin 602,Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/SYxnhVZ7Xf

— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 7,2025

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,but 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,and that he 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.

Kaddour-Cherif is seen being arrested by police this afternoon (Picture: Sky News)

Footage taken by Sky News this afternoon shows Kaddour-Cherif,wearing glasses,a grey jumper,a black headband,dark green trousers and a backpack.

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He is seen being placed in handcuffs by police officers while denying that he is Brahim. When asked if he knew him,he said: ‘Everyone knows him,he’s in (the) news.’

Police are seen bringing him to the back of the van and holding up an image of Kaddour-Cherif next to his face before un-cuffing and re-cuffing his hands behind his back.

He is later searched,with police going through his backpack and finding a laptop,umbrella and wallet,before being placed in the back of the police van.

Before he was put in the back of the van,he turned to those gathered and said: ‘Look at the justice of the UK,they release people by mistake,after this they ‘ah ah ah’,it’s not my f****** fault.’

A man who claims he called the police says he is ‘glad Kaddour-Cherif is in prison’.

Algerian Nadjib Mekdhia,50,who is homeless but stays in the Finsbury Park area of north London,said he recognised Kaddour-Cherif from a newspaper photograph.

He told the PA news agency: ‘I am glad he is in prison. We do not need people like that in our community.

‘I am proud Algerian. I am proud British. We do the right thing.’

He said he was walking past a cafe on Blackstock Road on Friday morning when he saw Kaddour-Cherif.

He said ‘straight away I called 999,I gave the location’ and said ‘this is him.’

He added: ‘I was by the Algerian cafe. The individual approached to me. I don’t know what he was doing. I recognised him. I asked a member of the public to give me a phone.

‘Straight away I called the police. The police vans came quickly. ‘

He said Kaddour-Cherif was just ‘hanging around’ at the time.

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.

Timeline of how the two prisoners were accidentally freed

Wednesday,October 29: Brahim Kaddour-Cherif is accidentally freed from HMP Wandsworth.Monday,November 3: William ‘Billy’ Smith is accidentally freed from HMP Wandsworth.Tuesday,November 4: Prison Service informs the Met a prisoner has been released in error. Justice Secretary David Lammy is informed.12pm – Wednesday,November 5: Lammy is quizzed by shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons over whether or not any more asylum seekers had been mistakenly freed from prison. Lammy declines to respond.12.41pm: News breaks that a prisoner has been accidentally freed from Wandsworth prison and a manhunt is underway.3.52pm: Met Police name him as Brahim Kaddour-Cherif.4.19pm: Surrey Police say a second prisoner,William ‘Billy’ Smith,was accidentally freed from HMP Wandsworth on Monday and a manhunt is underway.Thursday,November 6: – Smith returns to Wandsworth after handing himself back in.Friday,November 7: Kaddour-Cherif is arrested in north London after being spotted by a member of the public.‘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.The accidental releases happened just days after migrant sex offender Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford in Essex.Kebatu,a former asylum seeker from Ethiopia,became one of the most notorious sex offenders in the country when his case sparked protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping.Those demonstrations spread across the country this summer,with several descending into violence.The offender was due to be deported when he was freed on October 24. He was finally sent back to Ethiopia on October 28 after being tracked down by police in north London’s Finsbury Park.