A court heard how Hadush Kebatu, 41, tried to kiss the 14-year-old girl on a bench while also asking her to kiss him and made numerous sexually explicit comments
The police have launched a manhunt after a migrant who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl was mistakenly released from prison. Hadush Kebatu, 41, was reportedly released from HMP Chelmsford this morning by mistake.
The plan was to transfer the sex offender to a Home Office immigration removal centre ahead of his deportation. A major search for the migrant has now been launched by police.
A source at the Ministry of Justice told the Daily Mail the error was “the mother of all f*** ups” which they put down to “human error”. Kebatu was due to be deported from Britain imminently, according to reports.
Prisoners who are being deported are usually transferred via a secure jail van to an immigration removal centre. It remains unclear why Kebatu was allowed to walk free.
Last month, Kebatu was sentenced to 12 months in prison for sexually assaulting a schoolgirl and a woman who tried to intervene. He had been locked up for just four weeks before his release today after being jailed on September 23.
His arrest led to a wave of demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he was staying as an asylum seeker from Ethiopia. This triggered nationwide protests outside of hotels housing asylum seekers, with anti-migration and counter-protestors clashing in cities across the UK.
At trial, where he denied all offences, the court heard that the 41-year-old tried to kiss the teenage girl on a bench whilst also asking her to kiss him, and made numerous sexually explicit comments.
The following afternoon, he tried to kiss the same girl before sexually assaulting her, and made further sexually explicit comments despite being told the girl’s age and the fact that she was wearing her school uniform.
The court heard he made comments such as “you would be a good wife” and “we will have babies”. Shortly before this interaction, Kebatu had sexually assaulted and attempted to kiss an adult woman who had offered to help him create a CV to find work.
When she then saw Kebatu also interacting inappropriately with the teenage girl, she called 999 and he was arrested.
According to his own account, Kebatu left Ethiopia and travelled through Sudan, Libya, Italy, and France before crossing the Channel to the UK on a small boat in 2025.
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