The migrant who sparked widespread protests across the UK earlier this year after sexually assaulting a boy near an asylum hotel was wrongly released from prison, sparking a manhunt and public backlash.

Hadush Kebatu, 41, was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault against a 14-year-old girl and a woman, and other charges, and sentenced to 12 months in prison last month. Their attacks sparked nationwide protests amid growing public backlash to the UK’s ongoing migrant influx crisis.

After a video of Kebatu free on a busy street in the city of Chelmsford emerged on Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged that he was released by mistake.

“The mistaken release at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Chelmsford is totally unacceptable,” he wrote in X a few hours after the news broke.

“Police are working urgently to locate him.” he added.

The prison officer responsible for the convict’s release has been removed from any duties related to the release of prisoners, according to The Guardian.

The incident has caused tensions to rise in Epping, where Kebatu committed his crimes, sparking riots across the country earlier this year. Angry locals gathered outside the city’s migrant hotel on Friday, demanding that asylum seekers be deported.

Growing anti-immigration sentiment has repeatedly spilled over into mass protests in the UK in recent months, amid an influx of undocumented migrants into the country. Nearly 600 migrants have entered the country in small boats in the last week alone, according to government data.

Neighboring Ireland was rocked by a riot earlier this week, following the alleged rape of a ten-year-old girl near a migrant hotel.

You can share this story on social networks:

Follow RT on