Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is scheduled to outline legal measures on Monday aimed at deporting Shabir Ahmed, the recently released ringleader of a notorious Rochdale grooming gang.
Ahmed was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2012 after being convicted of multiple child sexual offenses, including rape. He was one of nine men from Rochdale and Oldham found guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13 at two takeaway restaurants. Following his release on licence earlier this month, he was placed in 24-hour staffed accommodation and fitted with a GPS electronic monitoring tag. While he remains in the UK, government officials have warned that he will be returned to custody if he violates any of his strict licence conditions.
Despite being stripped of his British citizenship after his conviction, Ahmed currently cannot be deported. He is protected by a provision in the 55-year-old Immigration Act of 1971. This law prevents the deportation of certain Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago—specifically those who entered before 1973 and had resided in the country for at least five years. Consequently, Ahmed remains in the UK with only his Pakistani nationality, though he claims to have renounced that as well.
The release of the grooming gang leader has sparked widespread concern. Some of his victims expressed that they felt "frightened" and "unsafe" upon learning of his release. This development has also prompted a united call from across the political spectrum for his immediate deportation. Furthermore, the scheduled announcement from Mahmood comes less than a week after survivors of grooming gangs urged the government to exclude sex offenders from early release schemes.
Efforts to deport Ahmed face significant diplomatic hurdles, as Pakistan has indicated it has no intention of accepting him. Dr. Farzana Shaikh, a Pakistan expert at Chatham House, explained during a radio interview that official Pakistani policy rejects taking Ahmed back under any circumstances, viewing Britain's pressure as reflecting "colonial arrogance and a colonial mindset." Behind the scenes, however, tense negotiations are taking place. According to Shaikh, Pakistan is unofficially demanding the extradition of two political dissidents currently residing in the UK—a retired army major and a former cabinet minister who served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Shaikh described these back-channel talks as "fraught and point to quite a diplomatic crisis between the two countries."
To bypass the 1971 legislation, the UK government is exploring various legal avenues. While a standard change to the law could take up to a year, the opposition Conservatives are urging the government to introduce emergency legislation or amend the pending immigration bill. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp argued that emergency legislation could resolve the legal loophole "in a matter of weeks." Philp also suggested that the UK should consider imposing visa sanctions on Pakistan if it continues to refuse Ahmed, stating: "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 added, "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."
Victims Minister Catherine Atkinson confirmed that the government has not ruled out the use of emergency legislation, emphasizing their absolute determination to resolve the issue. "They haven't ruled anything out because they are absolutely determined to get this done," she said in a television interview. Atkinson pointed to Mahmood's past success in securing deportations, noting that the Home Secretary had previously threatened visa penalties against Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "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. She added, "They were previous negotiations where countries refused to take back foreign national offenders and Shabana was able to secure those returns." Additionally, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stated that the government is "exploring every available option in this case, and that includes talking to the Pakistani authorities."
