Manhunts are under way for two men who were mistakenly released from Wandsworth prison in London in the past week in separate incidents.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, a 24-year-old Algerian, who is a sex offender, was released in error last Wednesday.

The second is William Smith, 35, who was jailed for fraud on Monday but then released later the same day.

It comes after the accidental release of Hadush Kebatu, a migrant sex offender, last month at HMP Chelmsford.

Here is what we know.

We know very little at this stage about why or how Kaddour-Cherif was mistakenly released.

The Metropolitan police were not told about the error for almost a week and it is unclear why this was the case.

Multiple prison sources say the process of release is complex and bureaucratic, and sometimes errors are made, including in calculations over time served.

As for Smith, the BBC understands he was released as a result of a clerical error at court level.

He was given a custodial sentence but it was entered in the computer system as a suspended sentence.

This was spotted and amended by the court but this correction was sent to the wrong person.

Brahim Kaddour-Cherif is a 24-year-old Algerian man.

The Met said he is a registered sex offender who was convicted of indecent exposure in November 2024, relating to an incident in March that year.

He was given an 18-month community order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

He is believed to have links to Tower Hamlets and was also known to spend time in the Westminster area, the police said.

Kaddour-Cherif is understood to have entered the UK legally on a visitor’s visa but has now overstayed that and was in the initial stages of the deportation process. He was not an asylum seeker.

William Smith, who goes by Billy, was released on Monday, Surrey Police said.

He was sentenced to 45 months for multiple fraud offences at Croydon Crown Court on Monday. He appeared via a live video link from HMP Wandsworth.

Smith is described by police as white, bald, and clean shaven.

He was last seen wearing a navy long sleeve jumper with the Nike brand ‘tick’ across the front in white, navy blue tracksuit bottoms with a Nike ‘tick’ in white on the left pocket, and black trainers.

Smith has links to Woking but could be anywhere in Surrey, the force said.

During Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, standing in for Sir Keir Starmer, was repeatedly asked by shadow justice secretary James Cartlidge whether any further asylum-seekers who were offenders had accidentally been released from prison since Epping sex offender Hadush Kebatu was mistakenly let out last month.

Lammy repeatedly refused to directly answer the question but towards the end of the session it emerged in the media that a prisoner had been mistakenly released. He was later named as Kaddour-Cherif.

Lammy was aware of the incident going into PMQs after being told about it overnight but not whether or not the man was an asylum seeker, the BBC understands.

The Conservatives reportedly were told about the mistaken release 15 minutes before PMQs started.

While he did not comment directly on the case during PMQs afterwards Lammy said he was “absolutely outraged” and his officials have been “working through the night to take [Kaddour-Cherif] back to prison”.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said it was “shocking that once again the Labour government has mistakenly allowed a foreign criminal to be released from prison”.

He added Lammy’s PMQs appearance was “nothing short of disgraceful” and accused him of being “dishonest” with the public and parliament, calling for him

to come back to the Commons to answer questions.

Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said the latest error was “unacceptable” and would be investigated.

The Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesperson Jess Brown-Fuller is calling for Lammy to return to the Commons to explain “why he failed to answer” questions on whether another prisoner had been mistakenly released during PMQs.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called the incident a “farce”. His deputy Richard Tice questioned what Lammy knew during PMQs and said it would be “at least very poor form” to deliberately withhold information from the Commons.

Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting – where the prison is located – said: “Local residents will quite rightly be deeply concerned. We urgently need answers from the government and Ministry of Justice as to how this was allowed to happen.”

The MP for Woking has told BBC Radio Surrey it’s “completely unacceptable” that another prisoner – with links to the area – has been accidentally released from HMP Wandsworth.

Lib Dem Will Forster, MP for Woking, said it was “completely unacceptable” that William Smith had been released accidentally.

“It’s utterly unacceptable that my constituents in Woking are going to be worried about their safety due to the government wrongly releasing three prisoners in a matter of a week,” he said.

Wandsworth Prison is a Victorian-era facility in south London.

Built in 1851, the complex was originally constructed to house fewer than 1,000 prisoners.

An August 2024 report by the prison’s independent monitoring board found inmate numbers in the “cramped, squalid” prison, had grown to 1,513.

“Wings were chaotic and staff across most units were unable to confirm where all prisoners were during the working day,” the report said.

The board added it was unable to conduct prisoner roll checks because staff could not provide accurate numbers and that a third of officers were not available for operational duty on any given day due to sickness, restricted duties or training.

In April, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons noted the population had been reduced by 150, and other “limited and fragile” improvements had been made.

In 2023 the prison was in the headlines after former British soldier Daniel Khalife escaped by clinging to the underside of a lorry.