Grooming Gang Leader 'Could Still Be Deported'
Shabir Ahmed was the head of a gang which abused girls as young as 12.
A government minister has stated that they are open to changing the law to deport Shabir Ahmed, the recently released ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang that targeted girls as young as 12.
Ahmed, 73, who was known as 'Daddy' by his victims, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in August 2012 for numerous child sexual offences including rape but was released on licence last week.
Alex Norris, Home Office Minister of State, told the Commons that the government was "examining every option" and reiterated that Ahmed could not be deported unless a 55-year-old law was amended.
Norris was responding to an Urgent Question in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Katie Lam.
Lam said the idea that Ahmed could not be deported due to a "decades-old law is as just absurd as it is sickening".
She said that as recently as 2023, parole officers stated Ahmed "poses a very high risk of harm to children".
Lam added: "When the law produces an outcome which is so wrong, it must be changed."
'Heinous Crime'
Norris, who confirmed reports that Ahmed was released wearing a GPS electronically monitored tag, explained that having arrived in the UK before 1971, Ahmed was exempt under immigration legislation introduced in 1973 to protect citizens in the UK, "most notably the Windrush generation."
He added that foreign nationals are usually deported for committing crimes as "heinous" as Ahmed's, and the fact that this has not been possible so far was "unacceptable."
Norris said, "I can assure the house we have not given up and will not," adding that the nature of the offending demands that all options be examined, including looking at possible amendments to the Immigration and Asylum Bill which is before the Commons next week.
Ahmed, who came to the UK in the late 1960s, held dual British and Pakistani citizenship at the time of his conviction.
His British citizenship was stripped by the courts after he was jailed, and it was expected he would be deported upon completion of his sentence.
Last week, victims of the gang were informed that provisions under the Immigration Act 1971 barred the removal of any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in the UK before 1973 and had been in the country for five years.
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