Shabir Ahmed was the head of a gang which abused girls as young as 12
Shabir Ahmed was the head of a gang which abused girls as young as 12
A government minister has said they were open to changing the law to deport Shabir Ahmed, the freed ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang that targeted girls as young as 12.
Ahmed, 73, who was known as ‘Daddy’ by his victims, was jailed for 22 years in August 2012 for a raft of child sexual offences including rape but released on licence last week.
Alex Norris Home Office minster of state told the Commons the government was “examining every option” and reiterated Ahmed could not be deported unless a 55-year-old law was amended.
Norris was responding to an Urgent Question in the house by Conservative MP Katie Lam.
Lam said the idea that Ahmed could not be deported due to a “decades-old law is as just absurd as it is sickening”.
She said as recently as 2023 parole officers said Ahmed “poses a very high risk of harm to children”.
Lam added: “When the law produces an outcome which is so wrong, it must be changed.”
‘Heinous crime’
Norris, who confirmed reports Ahmed was released wearing a GPS electronically monitored tag, said having arrived in the UK before 1971 he was exempt under immigration legislation introduced in 1973 to protect citizens in the UK “most notably the Windrush generation”.
He added foreign nationals are usually deported for committing the kind of “heinous” crime like Ahmed’s and the fact his has not been possible so far was “unacceptable”.
Norris said “I can assure the house we have not given up and will not,” adding the nature of the offending demands we examine all options” and this included looking at possible amendment to the Immigration and Asylum Bill which is before the Commons next week,
Ahmed, who came to the UK in the late 1960s, held dual British and Pakistani citizenship at he time he was convicted.
His British citizenship was stripped by the courts after he was jailed, and it was expected he would be deported when his sentence was complete.
Last week victims of the gang were told provisions under the Immigration Act 1971 barred the removal of any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in the UK before 1973 and had been in the country for five years.
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