Sir Keir Starmer has asked the Home Secretary to review the case of a Rochdale grooming gang ringleader amid calls for the law to be changed to allow him to be deported. Shabir Ahmed, 73, known to his victims as “Daddy”, is due to be released from prison on Thursday after serving 14 years since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls. He has also been stripped of his British citizenship, leaving him with only Pakistani nationality. But he is unable to be deported due to a 1971 law that forbids the removal of a small group of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.
Government response and political pressure
On Thursday, Downing Street said the Prime Minister had asked Shabana Mahmood to consider options for ensuring Ahmed’s deportation, describing his case as “particularly heinous”. In a statement, No 10 said: “We are absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit offences in the UK we will do everything in our power to remove them.” Ahmed’s impending release brought calls for action from politicians, including the likely next prime minister Andy Burnham – who called for senior ministers to “review all possible options” for his deportation. In the Commons, Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh called for Ahmed to be deported, saying the Foreign Office “should do everything possible within their power” to make sure that happens. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would attempt to amend the Government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill “to close the loophole so that this man can be deported immediately”.
Victim impact and legal details
Victims have shared their fears about Ahmed’s release. One, identified only as “Ruby”, is being supported by The Maggie Oliver Foundation, set up by Ms Oliver, an ex-police detective turned whistleblower over grooming gangs. Ruby said: “I’m scared for my safety and my kids’ safety. The main ringleader is getting out of prison, who is well known in Rochdale, Oldham and Middleton, so even if he’s not in that area, he still knows people and has a chance to talk to people from that area and that makes me unsafe.” In a statement issued through the foundation, Ruby said victims of abuse had been given “false promises” and left to “fend for themselves” through a lack of support from the authorities, and called for a change in the law to get grooming gang members deported. Ahmed was sentenced to 19 years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted of offences against five girls. He is reportedly being held at HMP Leeds and it is understood he will be released on licence with terms that he must initially live at accommodation which is staffed 24 hours, so will not return to his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham and is subject to an “exclusion zone” centred on Rochdale.
