Labour’s Burnham urges options to deport convicted Rochdale grooming leader Shabir Ahmed

Burnham vows to do everything to close loophole and deport ‘vile’ Rochdale grooming leader

Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a Rochdale child sex grooming gang who cited human rights laws(Picture: PA) Andy Burnham has said that if he becomes prime minister ‘nothing is off the table’ to deport the leader of the Rochdale grooming gang when he walks free from prison in just hours. Shabir Ahmed, 73, who wanted to be known as ‘Daddy’ to his victims, has served 14 years in jail for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls. But his victims are now living in fear after being told Ahmed cannot be deported and will be free on Thursday. Lawmakers admitted that the Immigration Act 1971 meant he could not be deported to Pakistan, where he was born, even though he has already been stripped of British citizenship. The Labour leader-in-waiting said he wanted to see Ahmed removed from the country, and would ask senior Government ministers to find a way to deport him. ‘Like everyone, I want this vile criminal out of the country. Victims must come first,’ he wrote on social media site X. He added: ‘I will ask the Home and Foreign Secretaries to review all possible options – and they should consider nothing is off the table.’ In 2022, when he was mayor of Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham called on the Tory government ‘to do everything within… the government’s power’ to deport grooming gang members. Victims have shared their fears about Ahmed’s release. One, identified only as ‘Ruby’, is being supported by The Maggie Oliver Foundation, set up by Ms Oliver, an ex-police detective turned whistleblower over grooming gangs. Ruby said: ‘I’m scared for my safety and my kids’ safety. This Is Not Right On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women. With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency. You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk. Read more: Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro's year-long violence against women campaign Remembering the women killed by men in 2024 ‘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.’ 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. Billy Howarth, from Parents Against Grooming UK in Rochdale, said another victim had given him a statement about the release. She said: ‘The pending/recent release of Shabir Ahmed from prison has had a profound and debilitating impact on my life. ‘I live in a constant state of hypervigilance, fearing for my physical safety every time I leave my home. ‘This fear has caused severe anxiety, disrupted my sleep, and forced me to drastically alter my daily routines and social life simply to avoid a potential confrontation. ‘The psychological toll is exhausting, and I feel unable to live freely or safely while this individual poses an unmonitored risk to my wellbeing.’ Documents published online, apparently from the Probation Service to one of Ahmed’s victims, states he will be released on July 2 and cannot be deported back to Pakistan due to provisions in the Immigration Act 1971 which bar his removal. These are that he arrived in the UK before 1973 and has lived in the UK for at least five years before his deportation was considered. The failure to deport multiple men with dual nationality convicted of serious child sex offences in grooming gangs has caused deep anger in many communities and heaped pressure on politicians. Neil Emmott, the leader of Rochdale council, said he was very concerned about how the ‘deeply troubling’ news of Ahmed’s release would affect the survivors still living in the Greater Manchester town. He said: ‘I hope that the reports that he will not be allowed into our borough are accurate and that we never see him on our streets again. If he is seen in our borough, I will demand that he is sent back to prison immediately. As far as I’m concerned, they should have locked him up and thrown away the key.’ A national inquiry into grooming gangs was announced earlier this year after the Government came under increasing criticism. Ahmed is reportedly being held at HMP Leeds and it is understood he will be released on licence with terms that he must initially live at accommodation which is staffed 24 hours, so will not return to his last known address on Windsor Avenue in Oldham and is subject to an ‘exclusion zone’ centred on Rochdale. For two years from early 2008, girls as young as 12 were plied with alcohol and drugs, gang-raped in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried to different flats in taxis where cash was paid to use the girls for sex. Ahmed had worked as a taxi driver but was also employed by Oldham Council as a benefits rights worker and seconded to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre. At his trial, Ahmed called the judge a ‘racist bastard’ and took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming he did not get a fair trial. He was jailed for 19 years in 2012 at Liverpool Crown Court, one of nine men in the Rochdale grooming gang trial convicted of offences against five girls. Police said the victims were from ‘chaotic council estate backgrounds and as many as 50 girls could have been victims of the gang. Judge Gerald Clifton said victims were treated ‘as though they were worthless and beyond any respect’ because they were not part of the gang’s community or religion. Greater Manchester Police said at the time there was no ‘racial or cultural’ element to the crimes. A report later found police did not act despite multiple concerns being raised, citing ‘serious multiple failures’ by police and local authorities. Ahmed’s case follows a similar legal battle by two other gang members, Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan. Both were stripped of their British citizenship in 2022, 10 years after their convictions, after fighting a long legal battle which went all the way to the Court of Appeal. Both invoked their human rights under article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a private and family life, to avoid deportation. A spokeswoman for the Home Office said on Tuesday: ‘Our thoughts are first and foremost with the victims of these appalling crimes. ‘On his release he will be on the sex offenders register for life, ordered to stay away from his victims and banned from contacting any child or young person. ‘As well as facing strict curfews and restriction zones, his every movement will be tracked, forced to wear an electronic tag. Should he breach his conditions, he will be immediately locked up.’ Comment now Comments Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google Add as preferred source

3 hours ago

Meanwhile In The UK, You Simply Will Not Believe This...

Meanwhile In The UK, You Simply Will Not Believe This... Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, A convicted predator who helped destroy the lives of vulnerable girls as young as 13 is days away from freedom in Britain, while Pakistan refuses to take him and archaic rules shield him from removal. Shabir Ahmed's case lays bare how legal technicalities, political cowardice, and a refusal to enforce borders have turned the country into a revolving door for the most dangerous offenders. Ahmed, now 73, arrived in the UK long before 1973 as a Commonwealth citizen. He was convicted in 2012 at Liverpool Crown Court on multiple counts of rape, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault, and trafficking for sexual exploitation. He treated at least one victim as property, abusing her on an almost weekly basis. Part of a gang of nine men operating out of takeaways in the Heywood area of Rochdale, Ahmed and his associates targeted working-class girls from broken backgrounds. A grooming gang leader cannot be deported back to Pakistan despite being stripped of his British citizenship due to a loophole in legislation. Shabir Ahmed is set to be released from prison on Thursday. GB News National Reporter @CDP1882 has more. pic.twitter.com/Fdfv841Usm — GB News (@GBNEWS) June 30, 2026 He received lengthy sentences that later expanded. His British citizenship was stripped. Yet, ludicrously, he cannot be deported. The barrier is a provision in the Immigration Act 1971 that exempts Commonwealth citizens who arrived before 1973 and have long residence from removal. On release, expected imminently, Ahmed faces lifelong sex offender registration, exclusion zones around Rochdale, bans on contacting any child, strict curfews, and electronic tagging. Breaches mean immediate return to prison. Taxpayers will foot the bill for round-the-clock monitoring and staffed accommodation. Criminal Lawyer Marcus Johnstone, who has handled grooming gang cases for nearly two decades, pointed out that outdated laws combined with excessive human rights legislation have made Britain the destination of choice for international sex criminals. The gangs are sophisticated. The system that should remove them is not. 'When you think it can't get any worse, it does.' Criminal Lawyer Marcus Johnstone, reacts to a grooming gang leader who cannot be deported back to Pakistan after being released from prison despite being stripped of his British citizenship, due to a loophole in legislation. pic.twitter.com/4TH0VnJ6ZC — GB News (@GBNEWS) June 30, 2026 Home Office statements emphasise thoughts with victims and the "darkest moments" of the grooming gangs scandal, insisting the full force of the law will apply through these conditions. Labour MP Paul Waugh, whose Rochdale constituency was ground zero for the abuse, called Ahmed a "depraved paedophile" who should have been removed years ago. He said the people of Rochdale want him gone and urged ministers to amend the Citizenship Act if necessary. This case fits a wider, years-long scandal of institutional failure and political cowardice. Separate recent investigations laid bare mini-mart operations where vulnerable children were plied with alcohol and cigarettes in exchange for sexual abuse. Illegal shops were caught handing out free vapes to kids in return for sexual favours. And the weary response from parts of the establishment often boiled down to telling victims and the public to simply "get over it." The common thread is the same: authorities slow-walked or buried evidence, prioritised community relations over child safety, and treated any mention of ethnic or cultural patterns as radioactive. Official files had ethnicity redacted. In two-thirds of cases, perpetrator background went unrecorded. Police in some areas told victims the Asian men who abused them were "probably not going to catch them." A 2020 Home Office report, relying on hopelessly incomplete data, pushed the false narrative that most grooming perpetrators were white - a claim parroted in Parliament and by broadcasters even after it was exposed as statistical sleight-of-hand. The motivation was always the same: fear of "racism" accusations, dread of community tension, and the overriding imperative to protect the narrative that mass immigration and multiculturalism have been an unalloyed success. Working-class girls, often from broken homes or care systems, paid the price while officials and media looked the other way or actively smeared whistleblowers. While Ahmed prepares for supervised release, London Mayor Sadiq Khan faces renewed scrutiny over his past claims. In January 2025 he told the London Assembly there were "no reported cases and also no indication of the grooming gangs" in the capital. A Metropolitan Police review of roughly 12,000 potential child sexual exploitation reports since 2010 has since flagged more than 4,000 cases that may require reopening. Many had been closed without further action. These have been referred to the National Crime Agency under Operation Beaconport. London's current review notes a broader mix of offender backgrounds than the classic Pakistani-heritage networks documented in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and elsewhere. That distinction does not erase the scale of what was ignored or the political class that spent years insisting the problem did not exist in the capital. This London revelation drops just days after the release of Rupert Lowe's Rape Gang Inquiry Report, which documented a coordinated national campaign of rape, torture and abuse against up to 250,000 British girls by predominantly Muslim grooming gangs operating across 149 local authority districts. Lowe's findings laid bare the same pattern of police warnings to rapists, political interference and deliberate suppression of evidence that protected predators for decades while treating working-class girls as disposable. Britain does not lack the power to change this. Parliament can amend citizenship and immigration rules to close loopholes for serious offenders. It can assert sovereignty over international obligations that shield threats. Other countries manage deportation of convicted criminals without descending into chaos. The question is whether the political class has the will to put the safety of British girls ahead of globalist pieties and domestic sensitivities. Ahmed walking free under licence is not justice. It is the predictable result of a system that has spent years protecting itself from hard truths rather than protecting its children. British girls deserve a country that removes foreign criminals who rape its children and never looks back. Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews. Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2026 - 09:05

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