Officials are “looking at every route” to deport the Rochdale grooming ringleader set to be released from prison on Thursday, a minister has said.
Shabir Ahmed, 73, known to his victims as Daddy, has served 14 years in jail since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls.
Victims have been told he cannot be deported to Pakistan despite being stripped of his British citizenship, and they have expressed fears for their safety once he is out of prison.
Speaking to LBC on Thursday morning, Labour minister Baroness Jacqui Smith said Ahmed is one of a “small number” of people who came to the UK from Commonwealth countries 50 years ago whom the law prevents from being deported.
Documents published online, apparently from the Probation Service to one of Ahmed’s victims, state he cannot be deported back due to provisions in the Immigration Act 1971 which bar his removal.
These are that he arrived in the UK before 1973 and has lived in the UK for at least five years before his deportation was considered.
Baroness Smith also suggested Pakistan had refused to take Ahmed, saying there is “work that needs to happen” to persuade the country to accept him if he is deported.
She said: “We’re doing everything we can, looking at every route to get this guy out of the country.”
On Wednesday, likely next prime minister Andy Burnham said Ahmed should be removed and he called for senior ministers to “review all possible options” for his deportation.
Answering questions on Ahmed in the House of Lords, justice minister Lord Timpson said he would be subject to “substantial and robust licence conditions”, including the possibility of being recalled to prison, and would “know that the eyes of the state will be on him 24 hours a day”.
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”.
She said Mr Burnham should instruct Labour MPs to vote for the Tory amendment, adding: “We need to make sure this vile individual never walks our streets again.”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.
