Efforts by the UK government to deport one of the ringleaders of the notorious Rochdale grooming gang have stalled, with legal obstacles and a diplomatic standoff with Pakistan leaving his removal in doubt.
Shabir Ahmed, 73, was released this week after 14 years behind bars for 30 child rape offences. Ahmed, who was known to his victims as “Daddy,” was initially sentenced to 19 years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted of offences against five girls.
Despite the severity of his crimes, Ahmed remains in Britain. The paedophile left Pakistan in the late 1960s and previously held dual British-Pakistani nationality. His British passport was revoked in 2016 so he could be deported after his release. However, he cannot be deported due to a provision in the Immigration Act 1971 which exempts Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK before 1973 from removal.
Complicating matters further, Pakistan is refusing to accept Rochdale rape gang ringleader Shabir Ahmed back into the country after he allegedly ripped up his passport, claiming he gave up his Pakistani citizenship by destroying it – a claim disputed by authorities in Britain. A Pakistani Government official said the country’s records confirm Ahmed renounced his citizenship decades ago, adding that “as far as Pakistan’s database and official records are concerned, Shabir Ahmed is not a Pakistani national.”
Islamabad has also attached political conditions to any potential deal. A senior Pakistani official told The Telegraph that the UK must hand over political dissidents living in Britain and “respect the issues that matter” to Islamabad rather than resorting to “arm-twisting” over Ahmed’s return. The same official accused Britain of a “colonial mindset”, asking pointedly, “These demands are being made about somebody who is now around 75 and who has spent more than 60 years in your country. How is he our national when he is actually not our national? This is arrogance and a colonial mindset. It is unacceptable to us,” he declared.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is weighing up whether to scrap the section which protects Commonwealth citizens from deportation if they arrived before 1973 and have lived in Britain for over five years. A government source suggested this route may prove more straightforward than resolving the impasse with Islamabad, telling The Telegraph: “There is probably a way of solving the problem over the 1971 Immigration Act. That is more solvable than the Pakistan side of the equation.”
Ministers have not ruled out tougher measures. The Home Office has confirmed all options remain under consideration, including emergency legislation to close the legal loophole, and ministers have not ruled out imposing visa sanctions on Pakistan, although such a move is understood to be viewed as a “nuclear option” that would only be considered if diplomatic efforts fail.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp condemned the situation, saying: “This is a disgrace. Britain must take a zero-tolerance approach to foreign criminals and illegal immigrants. Every foreign criminal should be deported, including this sick paedophile who is a danger to children in the UK.”
Precedent for cooperation
Not all cases have proved so intractable. Pakistan has previously accepted the deportation of convicted Rochdale groomers Hamid Safi and Mohammed Sajid as what officials described as “a gesture of goodwill.” Yet with Ahmed and two other ringleaders still in the UK, the standoff underscores the difficulty of enforcing deportation orders even after citizenship has been revoked.
For now, Ahmed remains under supervision. His release comes with strict licence conditions, including electronic GPS tagging, a ban from his last known address in Oldham, and an exclusion zone preventing him from entering parts of Rochdale.