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Prisoner who was let out by mistake hands himself in · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Try to remind you of the breaking news this hour.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: A prisoner who was released an error has handed himself in.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: In the last few moments. Are tweeked from the Justice
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Sextuary David Lammy saying William Smith is back in custody.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: The spike in mistaken releases is unacceptable. We're modernizing prison systems,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: replacing paper with digital tools to cut errors. We're working
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: with police to recapture the remaining Brahim cad Or sheriff
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: who is also mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth. That joining
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: us live is our national correspondent Tom Parmenter, who's outside
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: HP Wansworth. And you've got some further details Tom, about
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: William Smith's return to custody.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, they didn't catch him. He handed himself in. William
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Smith doing the decent thing and turning up here at
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  Speaker 2: Wandsworth Prison himself accompanied by his partner at around ten
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: point fifteen this morning, and he went back inside and
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: said look, I know I'm wanted. And he is now
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: back behind and we understand that his partner was in
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: tears as they said goodbye just outside the prison here
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  Speaker 2: this morning. And he is starting that forty five month
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: sentence that should have started on Monday when he was
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: sentenced in court, but there was a mix up between
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the court and the prison and they accidentally released him.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Another one of these mistaken releases that is causing so
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: much embarrassment and anger within the governments as to what
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: is going on within the prison service. There's a meeting
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  Speaker 2: of prison governors that is taking place today to try
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and see what else can be done to try to
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  Speaker 2: make sure that these things stop happening. We know that
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: there's around twenty two instants per month at the moment
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: across the country where prisoners are just let out by mistake,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: and as we know, there is another man hunt ongoing
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  Speaker 2: still for this Algerian twenty four year old sex offender
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  Speaker 2: who was released in error on the twenty ninth of
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: October from this prison as well. That was just a
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: few days after the fiasco with Hadash Kabatu, the Ethiopian
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  Speaker 2: sex offender who was released from Chelmsford Prison, and just
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  Speaker 2: days after David Lammie, the Justice Secretary, had promised the
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: tightest ever checks on releasing prisoners. Well, they clearly aren't
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: happening to the level that they should be happening, because
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: we now know that in the space of a week
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  Speaker 2: two more have disappeared. As I say, William Smith now
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  Speaker 2: back in custody here at Wandsworth, as the political fallout
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  Speaker 2: from all this continues to rumble on, and the real
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  Speaker 2: world consequences for the victims of these men and prisoners
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  Speaker 2: who are being released, and also the communities for wherever
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  Speaker 2: they may be. Now, this Algerian sex offender was due
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: to be deported because he had overstayed his visa, and
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  Speaker 2: the Metropolitan Police telling us that that man hunt for
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: that particular offender is still ongoing.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Tom, I'm just interested in a line that was in
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  Speaker 1: David lam He's tweets in the last few moments, referencing
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the fact that lots of the processing for this is
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: still taking place on paper, that they're only now just
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: digitizing parts of this system. You know, Wandsworth Prison behind
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  Speaker 1: you was built in eighteen fifty one. It sounds as
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  Speaker 1: though some of the processing systems are still Victorian in
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  Speaker 1: their nature now in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, some parts of the prisoner state still use technology
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  Speaker 2: that frankly a lot of people under the age of
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  Speaker 2: thirty have never heard of, certainly have never used, such
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  Speaker 2: as fax machines or carbon copy paperwork where there's a
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: sheet on top and different color sheets underneath, so that
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  Speaker 2: there's a paper trail. This kind of thing is almost
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  Speaker 2: unbelievable that it's still being used as the process, and
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  Speaker 2: there's no wonder that mistakes are being made when handwriting
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  Speaker 2: has to be deciphered between colleagues. We spoke to an
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  Speaker 2: inmate who came out last night here at Wandsworth, who
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: was released correctly after a week or so inside, and
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  Speaker 2: he said that it was chaotic inside with lots of
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: inexperienced staff members not really having a handle on the
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  Speaker 2: processes that they should be overseeing. And of course these
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  Speaker 2: are really important things that often involve quite dangerous offenders
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  Speaker 2: who should be punished, but in fact are being allowed out.
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  Speaker 2: And it's only down to William Smith, the offender who
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  Speaker 2: hands himself back in here this morning that he is
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  Speaker 2: back in custody. It's down to him and his conscience,
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  Speaker 2: more than the police hunt for him or anything that
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  Speaker 2: the government has done. William Smith has done the right thing.
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  Speaker 2: He's back serving his sentence for fraud offenses. But as
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  Speaker 2: the government have said, people across the country have said,
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  Speaker 2: this can't go on and really that effort to try
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  Speaker 2: and get on top of these bungled bits of bureaucracy
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  Speaker 2: that just continue to crop up within the prison system,
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  Speaker 2: well that just has to be sorted out as a
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  Speaker 2: matter of absolute priority for the government, not least the
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  Speaker 2: Justice Secretary David Lammy, who is aligned so closely to
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  Speaker 2: these fiasco He's promised this will be better, and clearly
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  Speaker 2: what we're seeing of the course of the last week
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  Speaker 2: here at Wandsworth and quite possibly at other prisons as well,
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  Speaker 2: the system isn't working.