Rochdale Grooming Gang Ringleader Released, Deportation Barred by 1971 Law

The ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang that targeted girls as young as 12 has been released from prison.

Shabir Ahmed, 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.

This week his victims were told he would be released on licence and despite earlier promises, could not be deported due to a 55-year-old law.

The BBC understands the 73-year-old left prison earlier and is now in secure accommodation, wearing a GPS electronically monitored tag.

The Home Office has said any breach of Ahmed's strict licence conditions would result in him being immediately returned to prison.

Earlier ministers said the government was looking at ways to have the child rapist deported to Pakistan.

In response to a question from Labour's Rochdale MP Paul Waugh, the Leader of the House Sir Alan Campbell said officials were "exploring every option in this case."

However Downing Street has since said it had no plans to change the 1971 legislation.

A No 10 spokeswoman said: "Ahmed's horrific crimes were at the heart of the grooming gangs scandal that represents one of the darkest moments in our country's history.

"He will rightly be on the sex offenders register for life, ordered to stay away from his victims and banned from contacting any child or young person.

"His every movement will be tracked, and forced to wear an electronic tag."

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.

Earlier this 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.

On Wednesday Andy Burnham, expected to take over as Labour leader and Prime Minister in the coming weeks, wrote on social media: "Like everyone, I want this vile criminal out of the country. Victims must come first.

"I will ask the home and foreign secretaries to review all possible options - and they should consider nothing is off the table."

The Home Office said the provisions of the 1971 act had "protected many individuals caught up in the Windrush crisis.

However the BBC understands there may be a further update from the Home Office this week.

Labour MP Jim McMahon, who represents a constituency in Oldham where some of the abuse occurred, earlier told the BBC that the 1971 act was intended to protect Commonwealth citizens who had come to the UK for a better life and who contributed to the country.

"It was not designed to give a free pass to a child rapist," he said.

"I think we need to anchor it in what the law was intended to do and not the way it has been abused today."

McMahon said the government wanted to "close the loophole" in the 1971 act, but said legal advice was needed to say whether any change could apply retrospectively and therefore allow Ahmed to be deported.

The BBC understands the government is considering whether the 1971 law could be changed through an amendment to the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.

Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the BBC he was planning to lay his own amendment to the bill to remove the provisions preventing Ahmed's removal.

He said McMahon and Waugh had "both agreed with me that the law needs to change".

Ahmed was the ringleader of a group of nine men who systematically groomed and sexually abused teenage girls in Rochdale and Oldham.

The men offered the girls food and cigarettes, and later plied them with alcohol before repeatedly raping them often in flats above take-away restaurants.

One survivor, identified as 'Ruby' to maintain her legal right to anonymity, told BBC Newsnight that she was: "Scared for my safety and my kids' safety."

"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."