UK to change law in bid to deport grooming gang ringleader

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood announced plans on Monday to change UK law to allow a convicted paedophile who led a so-called grooming gang to be deported following his release from prison.

Shabir Ahmed was jailed in 2012 for 22 years for multiple child sexual offences including rape when he was the ringleader of a gang of similarly predatory men targeting girls in Rochdale, northern England.

He left prison on licence earlier this month under the country’s early release programme.

He was stripped of his British citizenship following his conviction, leaving him with only Pakistani nationality, but a 1971 immigration law has prevented his deportation.

It prohibits the removal of Commonwealth nationals who, like Ahmed, arrived in Britain before 1973.

Announcing the law would be changed through an amendment to the Immigration and Asylum Bill working its way through parliament, Mahmood told MPs it would ensure “the vilest foreign criminals” can be deported.

“In response to the widely reported case of the vile grooming gang leader, Shabir Ahmed, our amendment will provide the Home Secretary with a new power to disapply Section 7 of the Immigration Act 1971 for serious criminals,” she said.