Rochdale’s MP has called for an inquiry into how members of the borough’s infamous grooming gang which avoided deportation for years were able to walk its streets – and bump into their victims.
It was confirmed this week that two members of the Rochdale grooming gang, Adil Khan and Abdul Rauf, had lost their appeal against deportation from the UK, following a seven-year-long battle in the courts.
Both men, now aged 51 and 52 respectively, were among nine gang members jailed in 2012 for a catalogue of child sex offences. Khan, then in his 40s, impregnated one girl, refusing to accept the child was his until a DNA test was done.
Following their conviction they were told they would be sent back to Pakistan after their release from jail. But both Khan and Rauf fought against deportation on the grounds that it would interfere with their human rights, mounting multiple legal challenges and appeals.
However the judges concluded, in a decision made in August and released publicly on Wednesday, that there was a ‘very strong public interest’ in their removal.
Rochdale MP Tony Lloyd has now written to Home Secretary Suella Braverman asking for the deportation to be ‘speedily enacted’.
READ MORE: What happened to each of Rochdale's grooming 'monsters' after they were jailed - and why it matters
He has also called for an inquiry into how the deportation process was drawn into a convoluted legal battle, and why they were allowed to freely continue walking Rochdale’s streets after their release from prison.
The former police and crime commissioner wrote: “As you will be aware, these men were given prison sentences for cruel and depraved attacks upon young girls and women.
“There can be no doubt that on the conclusion of those sentences they should have been speedily deported. This did not happen.
“Due to the failure of Home Secretaries, those deportations were blocked which then, astonishingly, allowed these men to continue to live in Rochdale with no effective limit on their behaviour and no constraint to protect the women who had been their victims from turning a street corner and seeing their abusers.
“I am writing to ask firstly that you now clarify the position of the Home Office as a matter of urgency to ensure that the decision of the court is speedily enacted, especially given that the immigration judges indicated there was ‘very strong public interest’ in deporting the pair as soon as possible.”
Mr Lloyd added: “Equally importantly is the need for an inquiry to learn the very sad lessons from this saga.
“Specifically we need to understand why the then Home Secretary failed to ensure that deportation orders were issued to be effective at the conclusion of prison sentences that allowed these men to go through a near decade of legal proceedings on the basis that they had renounced their Pakistani nationality, and the extraordinary cost to the tax payer of over half a million pounds in publicly funded legal fees.
“Equally challenging is the question as to why there was no conditionality placed on the residence of these men as a condition of their early release from prison. As I have said before, this put their victims at risk of turning a street corner and meeting those who abused them.
“It is important that lessons are learned from this case. I hope you would agree that it is scandalous that so many years have gone by with the risks I outlined above to their victims, not to mention the cost to the public.”
He concluded that he had raised the issues on ‘many occasions’ but had encountered only ‘excuse and evasion’.
Maggie Oliver, the former Greater Manchester Police detective who resigned from the force in 2012 and blew the whistle on the police handling of the Rochdale grooming gang has welcomed the outcome of the appeal – but also slammed the length of time it has taken to conclude.
She said: “While I am grateful to hear that these two paedophiles are finally to be deported, I am still enraged that this has taken such a long time to happen, at such an expense to the tax-payer and ongoing trauma to their victims.
“A criminal justice system that permits this is a broken one. Seven years have passed since the original recommendation to deport them was made, and 13 years since they committed the offences for which they were convicted. In the meantime, eye-watering sums have money have been spent from the public purse providing them with legal aid to fight the decision.
“All on the basis that it would infringe on their human rights. In my opinion, they gave up their rights when they raped, trafficked, and, in the case of Khan, impregnated, vulnerable children.
“During this time, these rapists have been permitted to go about their normal lives in Rochdale, leaving their victims terrified that they might bump into them at any time, as in fact did happen to one of the girls who was completely re-traumatised by the experience. As if they have not been through enough.
“I’m relieved for them that this risk has been removed. Coupled with the historic apology they received in April from GMP for their failings in investigating their abuse, I hope these girls, now women, can finally find some peace.”
Alongside impregnating one of his victims, Khan also trafficked another girl to other men for sex, using violence when she objected. He was sentenced to eight years in 2012 and released on licence four years later.
Rauf, a father-of-five, trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her to secluded areas to have sex with her in his taxi and ferrying her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others had sex with her. He was jailed for six years and released in November 2014 after serving two years and six months of his sentence.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and deputy mayor Bev Hughes said: “We welcome this decision but it comes after too many years of long legal battles and suspended justice for the victims and communities whose lives were ruined by the appalling crimes of these men. This is now the second appeal that they have lost against deportation. There is no question that it must be the last.
“Throughout the years, we have repeatedly pressed the Home Office for action, including after the first appeal was lost in 2018. We called on them to put the victims first and ensure that these men could not be allowed to go about their lives in the places where they carried out their abuses.
"Despite our representations, the Home Office’s failure to inform us of the developments in the case showed a flagrant disregard for the local communities who remained deeply affected and distressed by this postponement of justice.
“The new Home Secretary must now get a grip of this situation and restore the confidence of those communities. We hope that the deportation process can now be completed swiftly to provide some small sense of closure to those who suffered so terribly at their hands.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The crimes committed by the Rochdale child sexual exploitation group who preyed on the young and vulnerable were truly appalling and have no place in our society.
“That is why we are determined, notwithstanding the complexities of the cases, to take whatever action is available to us within the law against these perpetrators and to protect the victims.”
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