Andy Burnham has called on Home Secretary Priti Patel to step in and deport three members of Rochdale's infamous sex grooming gang.
The mayor spoke out a day after the M.E.N. revealed the father of the main victim was 'absolutely disgusted' that one member of the gang had swerved deportation and two others were still fighting to remain after renouncing their Pakistan citizenship.
On Monday, it emerged Abdul Aziz, 51, referred to by the gang as Master Aziz, was told by the Home Office that despite losing an appeal depriving him of UK citizenship in 2018 he would not in fact lose his citizenship and was allowed to remain in the UK.
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Aziz and two others, Adil Khan, 51 and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, all dual British-Pakistan nationals, were official notified as early as 2015 they would have their UK citizenship revoked to pave the way for their deportation. The then Home Secretary Theresa May ruled it would be 'conducive to the public good' for them to be deported. In 2018 they lost an appeal against the ruling but that only prompted further legal challenges.
The latest was an immigration tribunal hearing on Monday where Khan and Rauf argued throwing them out of the country would interfere with their human rights. It was only at that hearing that it emerged Aziz had already been told he would not be deported. The hearing was adjourned and a decision on the two remaining cases is expected later this year.
The father of one of the girls to be abused by the gang - the prosecution's main witness in the 2012 trial which ended with nine men being convicted - slammed the decision to allow Aziz to remain.
His daughter, who cannot be named as a victim of a sex crime, was referred to as Girl A in press reports of the trial and as Holly in the BBC drama about the scandal Three Girls which highlighted how the victims were not believed.
The girls, who were all white, were plied with drink, raped by a gang of Asian men and shared with others across the north west. The sentencing judge told the gang he thought they preyed on the girls partly because 'they were not of your community or religion'.
The father told the M.E.N: "It's disgusting. It's a travesty of justice. Deportation was ordered to happen by the government and somehow that's been turned on its head. Who in all this cares about our (Holly) and all the other victims? It looks like the other two are doing the same thing and does that mean we can't throw them out either? It's not right. I can't say I'm not English anymore. It's plainly obvious they have renounced their citizenship so they can stay here."
The three sex groomers are believed to still live in Rochdale. One of the victims was left in tears when she bumped into her abuser at Asda in Rochdale town centre in 2020.
Today (Wednesday) Mayor Burnham and his deputy Beverley Hughes urged the Home Secretary to step in and ensure the trio are deported.
In a statement, they said: "We are horrified that the ringleaders of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale, who were convicted for their heinous crimes, have used a legal loophole by renouncing their Pakistani nationality to avoid being deported. We are now in a situation where these men, having lost an appeal to avoid deportation in 2018, might have a chance of never being deported and be allowed to carry on with their lives in the very areas where they carried out their abuse.
"Victims have been forgotten in all this and we are appalled that the Home Secretary, who has had years to do right by them, has so far failed to deport. All her tough talk on deportations rings hollow when it comes to the perpetrators of child abuse. Despite our many representations to her, she failed to inform us that a court hearing challenging the deportation order was on-going. In so doing, she demonstrates how little concern she has for the local community who are understandably upset and angry about what is happening.
"We call on the Home Secretary to do everything within her and the Government’s power to get the right outcome for the victims. Justice will finally be seen to be fully served only once these deportations are complete and only then will the community be able to begin to heal."
Khan, then in his 40s, impregnated one girl, refusing to accept the child was his until a DNA test was done. He then met another girl he trafficked to others for sex, using violence when she objected.
Rauf, a father-of-five, trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her to secluded areas to have sex with her in his taxi and ferrying her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others had sex with her.
Taxi driver Aziz ferried girls as far as Leeds and Bradford and was paid by the stream of men who used the girls for sex, getting £40 for each introduction. Known as Master Aziz or Tariq, the married father-of-three, 41, kept a stash of condoms in his taxi.
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