The UK and Pakistan are at loggerheads over attempts to deport the ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang, after it emerged that Islamabad is refusing to accept him back.
Shabir Ahmed – who served 14 years in jail for multiple rapes and sexual abuse against young girls – was released from prison last week and the Home Office is now attempting to amend the law to allow him to be deported.
However, a diplomatic row is brewing as Pakistan is understood to be refusing to accept Ahmed and is demanding the extradition of two political dissidents from the UK in order to do so.
It comes as victims warned they are scared for their safety and accused the government of leaving them to “fend for themselves”.
While ministers initially said Ahmed could not be deported due to a 55-year-old law – despite him already being stripped of his British citizenship – they later confirmed that the Home Office was pursuing a range of options to remove him from the country.
Next week Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is expected to announce changes to the Immigration Act 1971 act to close the loophole which meant he could not be returned to Pakistan.
The prime minister’s spokesperson on Thursday said: ”We’re absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit offences in the UK, we’ll do everything in our power to remove them.”
It is understood that any removal from the UK requires cooperation from the other country to accept an individual back.
Under the 1971 act, those who arrived in the UK before 1973 and lived in the UK for at least five years before their deportation was considered cannot be removed from the country, which is the case for Ahmed.
It is not clear whether plans to close the loophole will come under separate fast-tracked legislation or as an amendment to the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is due to be debated in the Commons on Monday.
A Home Office minister indicated earlier this week that the government could consider emergency legislation.
Speaking to LBC last week, Labour minister Baroness Jacqui Smith said Ahmed was 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.
Baroness Smith also suggested Pakistan had refused to take Ahmed, saying there was “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.”
Victims have shared their fears following his release, with one, identified only as “Ruby”, saying she is scared for her own safety and that of her kids.
Ruby, who is being supported by The Maggie Oliver Foundation, set up by an ex-police detective turned whistleblower over grooming gangs, said: “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.
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