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.

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

“We can use things like visa sanctions, meaning we would stop issuing visas… to countries that don’t take back their citizens,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

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 emergency legislation could see a law change “in a matter of weeks whereas regulation legislation might take more like a year”.

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.