Rochdale grooming gang leader Shabbir Ahmed
Labor is considering emergency legislation to deport the Pakistan-born Rochdale gang leader.When Alex Norris, the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, was asked in the House of Commons whether the government could speed up legislation to pave the way for Shabbir Ahmed’s deportation, he said “all options are on the table.”Ahmed, 73, known to his victims as “Father,” was released last week after serving 14 years of a 22-year prison sentence for 30 child rape crimes. He was responsible for grooming vulnerable white girls as young as 12, plying them with alcohol and drugs, gang-raping them in rooms above takeaway shops in Oldham and Rochdale, and taking them to different flats for sex.The families of his victims said that they felt extremely afraid and frustrated after his release.Ahmed, who came to the UK in 1967 aged 14 from the Pakistani state of Punjab, held dual British and Pakistani citizenship when he was convicted.He was stripped of his British citizenship in 2016 and was expected to be deported to Pakistan upon his release. He was able to evade deportation because he arrived in the UK before 1971, and is exempt under section 7 of the Immigration Act 1971, which preserved the rights of Commonwealth and Irish nationals who were already in the UK when the law came into force on 1 January 1973.
The provisions are in place to protect the Windrush generation.“The idea of allowing him to remain in this country because of a provision in a decades-old law designed for a completely different time and context is not only absurd, it is disgusting,” Lam said.Norris said he would consider proposals put forward by the Conservatives to remove sections of the law that give protection from deportation to any citizen of the Commonwealth.Some MPs raised concerns that Pakistan might not accept it. Conservative MP Dr Neil Shastri Hirst said: “Is the minister prepared to use sanctions against Pakistan to ensure the deportation of this dangerous individual?”Norris responded: “We want to work closely with the Pakistani government to keep people out who have no right to be here, and that’s what we’re doing.”
