Mahmood to set out plan to deport grooming gang leader

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will set out on Monday the legal steps she will take to deport the freed ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang.

Shabir Ahmed, jailed for 22 years in 2012 for multiple counts of child sexual offences including rape, was released from prison on licence earlier this month.

Calls have mounted across the political spectrum for the deportation of Ahmed, who was stripped of his British citizenship following his conviction, leaving him with only Pakistani nationality.

But he cannot 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.

It is not yet clear how Mahmood will change the law.

It also appears Pakistan has no intention of accepting Ahmed, who claims to have renounced his Pakistani citizenship.

Ahmed was one of nine men from Rochdale and Oldham found guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13 at two takeaway restaurants.

After leaving prison, Ahmed was sent to 24-hour staffed accommodation and fitted with a GPS electronically monitored tag.

While he is in the UK, the government has said he would be returned to prison if he breaches a series of strict licence conditions.

Some of his victims said they were “frightened” and felt “unsafe” at his release.

At the time of his release, his victims were told he could not be deported to Pakistan due to the 55-year-old Immigration Act, which bars the removal of any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in the UK before 1973 and had been in the country for five years.

Ahmed is exempt from deportation despite having had his British citizenship stripped when he was jailed.

The home secretary will set out the legal steps she will take to remedy this.

It is not known how long it would take to change the law but one government source previously suggested it could potentially be up to a year.

Dr Farzana Shaikh, an expert on Pakistan working at Chatham House, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme negotiations on the issue had seen Pakistan demand the extradition of two political dissidents from the UK.

“We do know there are back channel negotiations going on – these are fraught and point to quite a diplomatic crisis between the two countries,” she said.

Shaikh said Pakistan was unofficially seeking the extradition of a former cabinet minster and adviser to ex-prime minister Imran Khan and also a retired army major.

She added: “Officially Pakistan’s position is that it will not take back Shabir Ahmed under any circumstances, and that Britain’s attempts to force Pakistan to do so smacks of colonial arrogance and a colonial mindset.”

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp suggested that sanctions could be imposed on Pakistan in the event that it refused to accept Ahmed.

“If they don’t take him back, we can say: well, we’re simply going to stop or restrict issuing visas to people from Pakistan to come here,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“That, by the way, should apply to any country around the world who doesn’t take back its own citizens who are criminals or here illegally.”

The Conservatives are pressing for the introduction of emergency legislation or an amendment to the current immigration bill going through parliament as they believe changing the 1971 Act will take too long.

Philp said such emergency legislation could see a law change “in a matter of weeks”.

Victims Minister Catherine Atkinson told BBC Breakfast the government did not rule out emergency legislation being used.

“They haven’t ruled anything out because they are absolutely determined to get this done,” she said.

Asked how the government would deal with Ahmed having renounced his Pakistani citizenship, she told the Today programme Mahmood had a strong track record of removals, citing examples where visa sanctions were threatened in order to secure removals.

“She threated visa penalties for Angola, Namibia and Democratic Republic of Congo unless they took back illegal immigrants and four months later all three were co-operating, with flights off the ground,” Atkinson said.

“They were previous negotiations where countries refused to take back foreign national offenders and Shabana was able to secure those returns.”

On Thursday, a spokesperson for Sir Keir told reporters “we are exploring every available option in this case, and that includes talking to the Pakistani authorities.”

The expected announcement from Mahmood comes less than a week after a call from grooming gang survivors to exclude sex offenders from early release.