David Lammy: Justice Secretary admits 12 more prisoners mistakenly released from prison over past month - and two remain at large in UK

Speaking to Mornings with Ridge and Frost, the justice secretary admitted that there have been further prisoners accidentally freed since he made a statement on the issue last month. Pushed on how many more people have been wrongly let out since his update to MPs on 11 November, Mr Lammy responded: "There have been two."

But he later clarified to the BBC afterwards that "there have been 12 [mistaken releases] since then, two are currently at large". At the time, he said 91 people had been mistakenly freed from prisons in England and Wales since April this year.

Mr Lammy told Sky News: "There have been releases in error since I made that statement, but I want to convey that the trend this year is fortunately downwards. There are two people currently at large... and a prison system that is paper-based. Mistakes happen."

But pushed for more detail on these mistaken releases, Mr Lammy said he doesn't want to give a "running commentary". He said: "It's important that I release that data in the way that it's always been released.

“And it's also important that I work with police where someone is at large, and sometimes because the police are about to nab somebody, they actually don't want me to discuss it, and it's important that they get on to it." Mr Lammy also told ITV that the two prisoners who remain at large are not violent or sexual offenders.

Reacting to Mr Lammy's admission, the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, said: "Calamity Lammy admits two more dangerous prisoners have been mistakenly released. But he won't say who they are or where they are. When will this fiasco end?"

The subject of accidental releases gained attention after Hadush Kebatu, who was jailed after sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while living in an asylum hotel in Epping, was mistakenly freed. Shortly after Kebatu's release, news emerged of two other prisoners who had been released in error - William Smith, who later handed himself in, and Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, who was rearrested.

The cases led to the government implementing new checks on those being let out of prison. Last month, Lammy set out the actions the government was taking to tackle the problem including investing up to £10m for new AI tools to reduce human error and upgrade the paper-based system used by the prison system.

The government has also asked former deputy commissioner of the Met Police Dame Lynne Owens to conduct a review into the mistakes that led to Kebatu's release and what had led to errors across the prison estate. Kebatu was re-arrested two days after his release and has now been deported to Ethiopia.