A Palestine Action protester has failed to return to Wandsworth prison after he was temporarily freed to go to his brother’s wedding.
Sean Middlebrough was being held on remand at HMP Wandsworth when he was granted bail by a judge to attend the wedding.
Police are now hunting for Middlebrough after he failed to return from the wedding, The Independent understands.
Middlebrough had been charged over an alleged plot by activists in Palestine Action to disrupt the London Stock Exchange by chaining themselves to the building.
A government spokesperson said: “Court bail decisions are made by judges – independently of government.“Absconding is a serious criminal offence, and any defendant who commits this crime could face longer behind bars.
“The police are working urgently to recapture this individual, and we urge anyone with information to go to the police.”
It comes with the government under increasing pressure over the wrongful release of several inmates. At least four are still at large, two of whom were released in 2024 and another two who were released in June this year.
On Friday, a sex offender who was released in error was arrested following a nine-day manhunt. Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was captured in Islington, north London, after being spotted by a member of the public.
The Algerian national was serving a sentence at HMP Wandsworth in southwest London before he was wrongly freed on 29 October. He has convictions for theft and has previously also been convicted for indecent exposure.
Kaddour-Cherif’s release piled pressure on justice secretary David Lammy, who came under fire for how he dealt with the mistaken release of the prisoner.
He was criticised for failing to address the blunder when he appeared at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, despite having been briefed about it and being repeatedly asked about accidental prison releases.
On Sunday, culture secretary Lisa Nandy accepted that wrongful releases have gone up under the current Labour government, but claimed the government is “gripping” the crisis.
“I haven’t had any discussions with the justice secretary about that this morning. What I can tell you is that under the last government, for quite some time, there were, on average, 17 wrong releases,” she told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
“Under this government that has risen. It’s 22. That is completely unacceptable. It was unacceptable before, it’s unacceptable now.”
She added: “Even one is too many, and the justice secretary is gripping this by appointing Dame Lynne Owens, who is the former director of the National Crime Agency, to make sure that we really grip this, starting with the antiquated paper-based system that was developed in the 1980s that is still being used, building new prisons and making sure that we have additional checks so that people aren’t wrongly released.”
