Kebatu’s arrest in July sparked protests outside The Bell Hotel in Epping, where he had been living after arriving in the UK.
In September, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard Kebatu tried to kiss a teenage girl on a bench and made numerous sexually explicit comments.
The following day, he encountered the same girl and tried to kiss her before sexually assaulting her. He also sexually assaulted a woman who had offered to help him draft a CV to find work.
During the trial, Kebatu gave his date of birth as December 1986, making him 38, but court records suggested he was 41.
He was found guilty of five offences and sentenced to 12 months. He was also given a five-year sexual harm prevention order, which banned him from approaching or contacting any female, and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.
The court heard it was his “firm wish” to be deported.
It is not clear where Kebatu was being deported to but under the UK Borders Act 2007, external, a deportation order must be made where a foreign national has been convicted of an offence and has received a custodial sentence of at least 12 months.
Kebatu was arrested on 8 July and was released in error 108 days later. Upon his release he would have been eligible for a £76 discharge payment.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the release was a “level of incompetence that beggars belief”.
“Conservatives voted against Labour’s prisoner release program because it was putting predators back on our streets,” she said on X.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “He is now walking the streets of Essex. Britain is broken.”
A report from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service said 262 prisoners in England and Wales were released in error between April 2024 and March 2025, up from 115 in the previous 12 months.