A member of the notorious Rochdale grooming gang battling deportation from the UK went on a “long rant” denying his crimes and suggesting his prosecution was racist.
Adil Khan, 51, referred to the “allegations” made against him and described it as a “laughing matter” at the Immigration Tribunal hearing his case.
Khan, along with Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, have been told they are to be sent back to Pakistan for the public good, after both were part of a gang convicted of a catalogue of serious sex offences in May 2012.
Since release from jail they have fought a long, legal battle against deportation, mounting multiple legal challenges and appeals, spanning several years on the grounds that deportation would interfere with their human rights.
You treated those 15-year-old girls as worthless and undeserving of basic respect and decency because they were not part of your religion or community— Rory Dunlop QC
Khan was questioned by government lawyer, Rory Dunlop QC, about his conviction for conspiracy to engage in sex with a child and trafficking another girl for sexual exploitation.
Khan, then in his 40s, impregnated one girl, refusing to accept the child was his until a DNA test was done.
He then met the other girl whom he trafficked to others for sex, using violence when she objected.
Khan said he only knew 10 words of English so could not groom anyone and denied being part the gang.
Khan, speaking through a Miripuri translator, who said Khan “was going on a long rant” he said, “I’m today denying it, and I was denying it at the time as well and in the future, never will such a thing happen.”
Mr Dunlop said the judge in Khan’s trail had described the suggestion the prosecutions were racially motivated as “nonsense.”
Khan replied; “I understand the racial basis and this is the real reason as well. The Home Office falsely levelled an allegation against me.”
Mr Dunlop said: “You treated those 15-year-old girls as worthless and undeserving of basic respect and decency because they were not part of your religion or community, is that right?”
Khan replied: “Religion should not come in between whatever I have done myself.”
He told the tribunal he was in a relationship with the 15-year-old he got pregnant but denied any involvement with the other girl.
And he said his family had accepted he made a “mistake” and forgiven him.
He said he had not told his teenage son about his conviction and the son had not asked, about what he described as “this laughing matter”.
Earlier, Judge Charlotte Welsh told the hearing the tribunal must consider Khan’s level of integration into British life, both culturally and socially, and his contribution to society.
Failure to deport any of the grooming gang has led to anger in Rochdale, where victims were living alongside their tormentors, and has led to public criticism on a number of home secretaries.
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 ferry her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others had sex with her.
For two years, from 2008, a gang of men in Rochdale preyed on girls as young as 12, plying them with alcohol and drugs before they were gang-raped in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried to different flats in taxis where cash was paid to use them.
As many as 47 girls were groomed. The appeal hearing against both men continues.
The hearing was adjourned until Friday morning.
