We’ve tried really hard but cannot find a prisoner released in error and still ‘on the loose’ in Scotland so Call Fiona Stalker on the restarted ‘Call Kaye’ show to help us, please! It doesn’t have to be true. A neighbour?

Professor John Robertson OBA, Director of the Goebbels Scotland Education Trust

Are there any reports of prisoners released in error in Scotland who have yet returned to prison

No absconding cases identified: Despite the volume of errors, all available reports from November 2025 explicitly state or imply that affected prisoners were successfully returned to custody through police cooperation. No sources mention ongoing manhunts, fugitives, or prisoners who “have yet returned” (i.e., remain at large). The SPS’s transparency protocol suggests quick resolutions, and opposition critics (e.g., Scottish Conservatives) have focused on the errors themselves rather than failures to recapture.1

This contrasts with high-profile cases in England and Wales, where 262 erroneous releases occurred in the year to March 2025, including at least four prisoners still unaccounted for as of November 7, 2025 (e.g., Algerian national Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, who absconded after release from HMP Wandsworth).2

Scottish coverage often references these English incidents for context but reports no parallel issues north of the border.3, 4

Sources:

  1. https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-humiliated-dozens-prisoners-mistakenly-36201344
  2. https://news.sky.com/story/how-many-prisoners-are-released-by-mistake-here-are-the-stats-as-search-for-migrant-sex-offender-continues-13457029
  3. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/dozens-prisoners-mistakenly-released-jails-36200782
  4. https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1987070656773488859

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