The migrant sex offender who was wrongly released from prison has been deported to Ethiopia with no right to return to the UK.
Footage captured from Heathrow Airport showed the moment Hadush Kebatu, 38, was escorted on to a plane last night.
He was mistakenly freed from HMP Chelmsford on Friday morning after serving just one month of his year-long sentence for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old schoolgirl.
Kebatu should have been transferred to a deportation centre, but clueless prison officers repeatedly told him to leave and get on a train to London instead.
The Ethiopian national, who arrived in the UK on a small boat, was eventually arrested in north London on Sunday morning after a two-day manhunt.
He was pictured being detained by four officers inside Finsbury Park, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer vowing he ‘will be deported’.
The Home Office has now confirmed Kebatu was removed on a flight to Ethiopia last night and arrived this morning.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: ‘Last week’s blunder should never have happened – and I share the public’s anger that it did.
‘I would like to thank the police for rapidly bringing Mr Kebatu into custody and the public for their vigilance.
‘I have pulled every lever to deport Mr Kebatu and remove him off British soil. I am pleased to confirm this vile child sex offender has been deported.
‘Our streets are safer because of it. If you come to this country and commit crimes, we will remove you.’
A minister said it was ‘unacceptable’ that a prisoner had been released without checks being done to ensure that was correct.
It was put to border security minister Alex Norris on Sky News that the situation ‘beggars belief,’ to which he replied: ‘It’s unacceptable.
‘It’s why were so angry about it, it’s why we’ve put those changes in.’
He added, however, that he could not confirm whether Hadush Kebatu received a cash payment to return to Ethiopia.
Alex Norris said ministers ‘are not involved in the operational movements’ such as those that happened overnight.
Asked whether Kebatu had been given money on exiting the country, as is sometimes the case when a migrant leaves voluntarily, he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘I can’t tell you on the cash piece.
‘I know that early in the process, he had asked for that and was denied… we do it sometimes to make a removal easier because it saves the taxpayer money, but I can’t tell in this case.’
Asked whether he did not know the answer to whether thousands of pounds had been paid, Mr Norris said: ‘You would know that ministers are not involved in the operational movements that happened overnight.
‘Many thousands of pounds, I can’t accept that characterisation – that’s not what routinely happens.’
Tory MP for Epping Forest Neil Hudson said he was ‘very relieved’ at Kebatu’s deportation, but ‘this hasn’t gone away for the people of Epping’.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘No-one wants to see our home town the lead story on the news, so this is incredibly frustrating and the Government must get a grip.
He reiterated calls for the Bell Hotel to cease housing asylum seekers, adding: ‘There are significant management and safeguarding issues related to this hotel, and actually what we need to see is that the hotel needs to be closed.
‘This is the wrong hotel in the wrong place, right near the forest, right near two schools.’
Kebatu, whose offences sparked protests outside The Bell Hotel in Epping and around the country, left prison with a small amount of personal money.
He was first filmed in Chelmsford speaking to members of the public, before he boarded a train to London at 12.41pm on Friday.
CCTV then showed Kebatu in the Dalston area of Hackney just before 8pm that evening.
He was also picked up at a library in Dalston Square around two hours earlier, wearing a prison grey tracksuit while clutching a white tote bag with avocados on it.
His movements on Saturday are unclear but the Met Police confirmed today that he was finally caught in Finsbury Park on Sunday morning, three days after being mistakenly freed.
In a picture of his arrest, Kebatu – who had access to funds – was seen wearing jeans, a puffer jacket and a hood over his head, having managed to change out of his prison tracksuit.
Footage showed him being bundled into the back of a police van.
It comes after it emerged that prison officers told Kebatu he had to make it to the removal centre on his own steam.
A delivery driver told Sky News: ‘I heard one of the officers saying, ‘This is how you get to the station, you go down here…’ [he] directed him to the station and said he had to get on a train to get to this place… This conversation was at the front of the prison.’
In what caused further disbelief last night, Kebatu spent more than 90 minutes hanging around outside the prison because he simply did not know ‘where to go or what to do’.
The driver, who was delivering equipment to the prison, said: ‘[The officers] were basically sending him away, saying, ‘Go, you’ve been released, you go.”
The debacle has left Labour facing fresh questions about its handling of the migrant crisis.
It comes amid a backlash against efforts to tackle illegal migration after a man who was deported under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme with France reappeared on UK shores having crossed the Channel again in a small boat.
Tory MP for Epping Forest, Neil Hudson, called Kebatu’s release a ‘catastrophic mistake’ which had ‘deeply distressed, upset and angered’ the whole community, adding that ‘accountability must go right to the top’.
Even after being set free, Kebatu kept going ‘back and forth’ into the prison reception area seeking help and showing staff a wad of paperwork about his case, according to the driver.
‘I’m not sticking up for the guy but in my eyes he wanted to do the right thing and go to the right place,’ he said.
‘He knew he was getting deported but he didn’t know where to go or how he should get there. He kept scratching his head and saying, ‘Where do I go, where do I go?”
He added that the officers had no interest in helping him, saying, ‘You’re released, you’re released’.
Kebatu was jailed for a year last month after assaulting his 14-year-old victim. During his trial, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard that he acted ‘ignorantly and repulsively’.
The migrant became aroused as he put his hand on the girl’s thighs and stroked her hair despite knowing ‘full well she was only 14’. He said he wanted to have a baby with her and invited her back to The Bell Hotel, where he was living.
Kebatu then tried to kiss a woman who attempted to intervene, before putting his hand on her leg and telling her she was pretty.
The asylum seeker gave his age as 38 during a court appearance but a judge said he had seen information indicating he was 41.
Met Police Commander James Conway urged Kebatu to give himself up, saying: ‘We want to locate you in a safe and controlled way.
‘You had already indicated a desire to return to Ethiopia when speaking to immigration staff. The best outcome for you is to make contact directly with us.’
He said the asylum seeker had taken ‘a number of journeys’ across London since his release on Friday and had ‘access to funds’.
