Starmer asks home secretary to examine options for deporting grooming gang ringleader

Keir Starmer has asked the UK home secretary to review the case of a Rochdale grooming gang ringleader amid calls for the law to be changed to allow him to be deported.

Shabir Ahmed, 73, known to his victims as “Daddy”, was released from prison on Thursday, the Press Association understands, after serving 14 years since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls.

He is understood to have been freed on licence and told he must initially live at a bail hostel which is staffed 24 hours and wear an electronic GPS tag, so will not be allowed to his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham and is subject to an “exclusion zone”, meaning he cannot go to parts of Rochdale.

He has been stripped of his British citizenship, leaving him with only Pakistani nationality.

But he is unable to 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.

Downing Street said the prime minister had asked Shabana Mahmood to consider options for ensuring Ahmed’s deportation, describing his case as “particularly heinous”.

In a statement, No 10 said: “We are absolutely clear that where foreign nationals commit offences in the UK we will do everything in our power to remove them.”

Ahmed’s impending release brought calls for action from politicians, including the likely next prime minister Andy Burnham – who called for senior ministers to “review all possible options” for his deportation.

In the Commons, Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh called for Ahmed to be deported, saying the Foreign Office “should do everything possible within their power” to make sure that happens.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would attempt to amend the government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill “to close the loophole so that this man can be deported immediately”.

Victims have shared their fears about Ahmed’s release.

One said she was “absolutely furious” officials did not tell her he was going to be released, adding: “I had to find out about it from the media, in the week of his release.”

The woman, known as Amber, said she has been unable to sleep and felt “physically sick” at the news and fears for the safety of her children.

“He has contacts in Rochdale. They operated as a gang – so even if he stays out of Rochdale, he could still get other men to do what he wants.”

In a statement released on her behalf by the Centre for Women’s Justice, she said she felt like she had been “let down all over again” after police previously apologised for treating her as a perpetrator rather than a victim and there was “still zero victim support”.

CWJ solicitor Kate Ellis said it was “completely unacceptable” victims were not being told about plans for their abuser’s release from prison.

Another woman, identified only as “Ruby”, is being supported by The Maggie Oliver Foundation which was launched by the ex-police detective turned whistleblower over grooming gangs.

Ruby said: “I’m 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.”

In a statement issued through the foundation, Ruby said victims of abuse had been given “false promises” and left to “fend for themselves” through a lack of support from the authorities, and called for a change in the law to get grooming gang members deported.

Ahmed was sentenced to 19 years in prison at Liverpool Crown Court in 2012 as one of nine men convicted of offences against five girls.