MPs demand action as freed Pakistani grooming gang leader is protected from deportation by legal loophole
Labour is facing mounting pressure to change immigration laws immediately so that a child rapist freed from jail can be deported.
Shabir Ahmed, 73, was sentenced to more than 20 years in jail after being convicted of 30 child rape offences as part of the Rochdale grooming gang.
But on Thursday, the Pakistan-born rapist was released after serving 14 years.
Britain stripped him of his citizenship, but cannot currently deport him because of protections granted to Commonwealth immigrants such as Ahmed under the Immigration Act 1971, as The Telegraph revealed on Monday.
On Thursday, Downing Street said the Prime Minister had asked Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, to “consider what can be done” to deport Ahmed, describing his case as “particularly heinous”.
It comes after Andy Burnham, expected to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister, also vowed to “review all options” to deport the “vile criminal”.
On Thursday night, the Tories urged the Government to act now, and pledged to table an amendment in the House of Commons to “get this man out for good”.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said: “It is disgusting that the ringleader of the grooming gangs in Rochdale has been let out. He needs to be deported, and Conservatives are bringing forward an amendment to make this happen.”
The amendment to Ms Mahmood’s immigration bill will propose rewriting the 1971 act to permit the removal of serious criminals such as Ahmed.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, also urged Labour to impose a graduated escalation of visa restrictions on Pakistan, up to and including banning all applicants, and to suspend overseas aid if Pakistan refused to take back Ahmed and other child groomers.
Paul Waugh, the Labour MP for Rochdale, where Ahmed committed his abuse, and Jim McMahon, the Labour MP for Oldham, where he lived, have called for “every available avenue to be explored” to deport him.
Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK leader, said: “What hope do we have as a country if we cannot even deport a foreign national who was a ringleader in the Rochdale grooming gangs? Britain is utterly, utterly broken.”
It is understood Ms Mahmood is considering closing the loophole in order to remove Ahmed from the UK.
However, even if an amendment were to pass, two senior Pakistani government officials told The Telegraph that the country would not accept Ahmed back because he renounced his Pakistani citizenship “several decades ago”.
They added that he posed a danger to Pakistani children.
If their claim is correct, it places Ahmed in the same situation as two other freed Pakistani ringleaders of the Rochdale grooming gang whom Pakistan has refused to take back.
The pair were stripped of their British citizenship after their convictions but then renounced their Pakistani citizenship in an attempt to thwart their removal.
A senior Pakistani government source told The Telegraph: “Pakistan has maintained that someone who is not a Pakistani national cannot be allowed or accepted inside the country. Ahmed is considered a serious safeguarding risk because of his criminal past in the UK.
“How can someone with his criminality be deemed safe in a country like Pakistan? He poses as much danger to children in Pakistan as he would anywhere else.
“Will the UK allow it if Pakistan sends a foreign criminal to live in the UK communities? Shabir Ahmed is a foreigner.”
The second official, who has also been in talks with UK officials about Ahmed, said the convicted child rapist moved to Britain when he was a boy and had spent nearly 95 per cent of his life in the UK.
He said: “It is for the UK Government to decide his future. He is not a Pakistani national – as far as we know, he revoked his Pakistani citizenship, and Pakistan will never allow him inside the country.”
A Government spokesman said it was “doing everything possible” to deport foreign offenders such as Ahmed but admitted “this necessarily involves the agreement of the receiving country, which has not always been possible”.
A source said “all options” remained on the table to put pressure on Pakistan, including the possibility of imposing visa restrictions on its citizens seeking to come to Britain. However, it is understood that this is seen as the “nuclear option” that would be considered only if all other diplomatic efforts failed.
Government sources disputed the claim that Ahmed had renounced his citizenship. A source said Ahmed believed he had given up his citizenship but had not, in fact, completed the process. The UK had evidence to support its contention from the high commission and interior ministry, a source said.
Ahmed received concurrent sentences of 22 and 19 years for multiple sex offences against children as young as 12, whom his gang groomed at two takeaway restaurants in Rochdale.
The court was told Ahmed, who made his victims call him “Daddy”, had abused one girl for more than a decade, using her as a “possession” for his own sexual gratification.
He was stripped of his UK citizenship in 2016 but is protected by a provision in the Immigration Act that exempts Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK before 1973 from deportation. The exemption was designed in part to protect Windrush immigrants.
Pakistan has resisted appeals from the UK to accept back Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan, two of Ahmed’s co-ring leaders in the gang, after they renounced their Pakistani citizenship following their convictions and the revocation of their British passports. However, two other Rochdale groomers have been repatriated to Pakistan.
The Ministry of Justice has been forced to spend thousands of pounds GPS tagging Ahmed following his release.
It has imposed geographical exclusion zones to prevent him returning to Rochdale or Oldham, and placed him in accommodation with 24/7 staffing ready to alert the police should he breach the conditions of his release.
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