This article first appeared in The Globe and Mail online on December 5, 2025

During the last week of October, a grim comedy of errors played out in the United Kingdom.
Instead of being sent to an immigration detention centre, Hadush Kebatu, an Ethiopian asylum seeker and convicted sex offender, was mistakenly released from a prison in Chelmsford.

According to an eyewitness, the confused man, clad in a grey prison-issue tracksuit and clutching his possessions in a plastic bag, tried to re-enter the prison several times after being released. He was turned away by prison staff, who directed him to the railway station. By the time the authorities became aware of their blunder, he was well on his way to London.

The snafu was particularly galling, as Mr. Kebatu’s arrest over the summer for sexually assaulting a woman and a 14-year-old girl had ignited a political storm, with right-wing protesters targeting the asylum hotel in Epping, Essex, where he had been staying.

After an intense 48-hour manhunt, Mr. Kebatu was located and taken into custody. In the correctional equivalent of sweeping the problem under the rug, he was given what was called a “discretionary payment” of £500 and deported.

But the problem stubbornly refused to go away.