Why grooming gang ringleader cannot be deported

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0:10He led one of Britain's most notorious Grimming gangs. He was stripped of his British citizenship. And yet, Shabir Ahmed cannot be deported once released from jail. This is why. How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

0:52Just a warning, on today's episode, we will be discussing grooming gangs, rape, sexual abuse, and coercive control. Shabbir Amit was the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, A man convicted of horrific sexual offences against vulnerable girls, some as young as 12. He was jailed, he was stripped of his British citizenship, and his victims believed that when his sentence was over, he'd be sent back to Pakistan. But they've been told he cannot be deported, just as Ahmed is released from prison. It is only by facing up fully and unflinchingly to what happened, in all of its horrifying detail that we can be sure of bringing about the whole system culture change that is necessary on this critically important issue.

1:44Now that was soon to be Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaking back in 2024 when of course he was mayor of Greater Manchester. His point then was about the failures that left young girls at the mercy of abusers like Amit. But it raises other questions for Burnham as much for the rest of us. if we are to face up fully and unflinchingly to what happened in Rochdale, what do we do with the man convicted of leading that abuse when the law says he can't be deported? And why do we find it so difficult to get rid of some of the most serious foreign-born offenders, even when ministers, victims and plenty of the public believe they should have no right to remain here?

2:20Joshua Rosenberg is a lawyer, journalist and legal affairs commentator. Joshua, always great to have you on the podcast when we're discussing subjects like this. I wonder, though, if we can just start with Shabir Ahmed himself. Just remind us who he is and the extent of his criminality. I think the extent of his criminality is demonstrated by the fact that he got 22 years in prison. That was in August 2012. You don't serve the full amount passed by a court, but he has been in prison since then. He was the leader of a grooming gang in Rochdale. The gang gained the trust of their victims by offering takeaway food and cigarettes, later plied them with alcohol before repeatedly raping them.

3:06And the jury heard that he had treated one victim as a possession and that this girl had been abused on an almost weekly basis. And the survivor, identified only as Ruby to maintain her anonymity, said that she was scared for her safety and her kids' safety. And she said that this man, the main ringleader, is coming out of prison. He's well known in Rochdale, Alderman, Middleton. So he has a chance to talk to people. And that made her feel unsafe. And you can only imagine what his victims will be feeling at his release from prison. But that is what is happening. And as you say, he is being released before the end of the full sentence.

3:46So presumably there are conditions attached to that release. There are certainly conditions attached, such as a curfew. And this is something that government ministers have been stressing. If he strays, if he doesn't behave, then he could be recalled to prison to serve the rest of his sentence, quite apart from any criminal offences he might be convicted of. So you can be sure that if it's possible to keep an eye on people through tagging, through checking people's homes, through appointments at a probation officer, that sort of thing. Well, the authorities are going to do everything they can to make sure that he doesn't re-offend.

4:21So explain exactly why this horrific individual will not be on a plane back to Pakistan, as clearly, at least for a time, was the plan. I don't know whether it was a plan or not, because it was always known that he was entitled to claim an exemption under the Immigration Act 1971, which was passed at a time when plenty of people had come to the United Kingdom from Commonwealth countries, settled here. There weren't restrictions on entry. There weren't so many formalities. And it was thought that people who had been settled here, permanently resident in the UK for five years, should have certain exemptions from laws.

5:04Now, two of those laws would apply in this case. One of them is the ability under the Immigration Act to deport somebody who's not a British citizen if the Home Secretary thinks that his deportation is conducive to the public good. So she can throw somebody out if they're not a British citizen, if she thinks that they really shouldn't be here in the UK. And the other one might apply after somebody is convicted. It's possible for a judge to recommend somebody for deportation when sentence is passed. Now, that didn't happen in this case, as far as I know, because of the exceptions which say that you're not liable to deportation.

5:48You're not liable to be thrown out of the country as not conducive to the public good because you have been in the country for five years or in the case of somebody sent to prison in the five years preceding your prison sentence. And that seems to apply to Shabir Ahmed. I think we can both understand why there is considerable public outrage and public interest in this. But if the intention was not to deport, or indeed that the authorities were aware that there was going to be this legal hurdle, legal barricade, in fact, what was the purpose then of stripping him of his citizenship? That's a very good question.

6:26And as you rightly say, he originally had British citizenship and that was taken away from him. I suppose that means that he doesn't get benefits in the way that British people do. He can't claim to have a British passport, that sort of thing. So if he were to leave the United Kingdom voluntarily, he wouldn't be able to come back. it's maybe just a mark of disapproval of this. But you're absolutely right. It seems that people were led to believe that he might be deported. We don't know for sure that this is the law that applies, but what's been reported is that families have been told about this provision in the Immigration Act, and that is the explanation that's apparently been given for the fact that he doesn't seem to be eligible for deportation.

7:16If Ahmed is not to be deported, are there any means by which he can be kept in custody? We know that Home Office officials are scurrying around looking for something. You might have thought that if this applied, and given that they knew that this high profile release was coming up so much so that they were able to tell the victims and their families that they might have taken advantage of any provision that they could find. But we wait to see. They certainly haven't announced anything officially. I think there has to be a reason for detaining somebody. Obviously, he hasn't done anything during the period while he was in prison.

7:56He hasn't committed any further criminal offences or anything like that. And although people are released early under various statutory provisions, that is seen as an entitlement. And I don't think it's possible to say, well, we don't like this person. You're going to stay in prison longer. The UK is in a curious place right now, twixt two prime ministers. We have heard from Andy Burnham, the man that everyone is assuming will be the next one, that he will do everything possible to get this man out of the country. What might that be, short of repealing those particular parts of the Immigration Act 71?

8:31Well, he hasn't said, and to be fair to him, all he's saying is that he's going to ask members of Keir Starmer's government if there's anything that they can do. Now, that's perfectly reasonable. But you're absolutely right to say that in a few weeks time, he may well be in a position to do something. Now, I don't know what the government is going to tell him. But if there's a thought of perhaps changing the law, particularly in this one case, well, that might run into difficulties. Because the fact is, he was given a lengthy prison sentence as his punishment for these very serious crimes. Deportation would be an additional punishment for the crimes.

9:19And we're talking about what's called retrospective legislation. Legislation looks back, we would be talking about imposing a punishment that wasn't in existence at the time of the crime. Now, that's regarded as unfair. It's also contrary to Article 7 of the Human Rights Convention, which says that you mustn't be punished more severely after the event. It's simply not fair to change the rules retrospectively. And if you were to change the rules for him, well, how would that apply to others in a similar position? Where would you stop? Would you say that, you know, other members of the grooming gangs ought to face harsher penalties because we don't like the fact that he was sentenced to a finite sentence and he's being let out?

10:03I think this requires quite a lot of thought if the government is to go down this road. But whenever, you know, the public discourse collides with the judicial process in this fashion, we do tend to oversimplify things. So when people suggest, look, there is a law that is preventing him from being deported, scrap that law, get him on a plane. It just isn't as simple as that. It isn't as simple as that because you have to think of the wider implications. And there's also the very important point that if we were to put him on a plane to Pakistan, the Pakistani authorities might not let him off that plane.

10:37Why would they? Why would they want him there? I don't know whether he still even has Pakistani nationality himself. He would be stateless. Certainly, the impression one has is that Pakistan is not going to welcome him back. So that's a practical problem as well. It is a practical difficulty that the government faces. What we haven't had, as far as I know, is any clear statement of the government's position. Now, they tend not to speak about individual cases in circumstances like this. But I do think it's reasonable to expect the government to at least brief journalists in detail about the circumstances of this case, if and when he is released.

11:20Because I think the public wants to know, and they want to know why, if it is the case, it may be too difficult to do anything about it. I mean, over the past few years, we have seen a number of high profile deportation attempts which have failed, which have not been directly linked to the Immigration Act 71. What are the ways in which a foreign national criminal can resist being sent home? I think we've both kind of nodded already to the ECHR, the European Convention on Human Rights. By chance, the government published a bill only two days ago to amend the way in which Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention is interpreted in the courts here in the United Kingdom.

12:02Now, Article 8 guarantees a right to respect to private and family life. And in one or two cases, individuals have said, look, I have a family here. I have a child here. I have a child who has special needs. I have a child who doesn't speak Albanian, for example, because he hasn't been brought up in Albania, even though his parents are Albanian. And it would be damaging to that child if I, the father, was sent back to my own country. So Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention has been used by people facing deportation to say this would be a breach of their rights. Now, what the government is doing in the immigration asylum bill published this week is tightening the interpretation of Article 8 to try to limit the scope of the people who can claim protection under Article 8, family members, people like that, in order to, the government says, keep the interpretation of the Human Rights Convention, Article 8, in line with the interpretation of the Human Rights Court.

13:08because, as you know, the government is committed to the United Kingdom remaining a member of the Human Rights Convention and the government is committed to observing rulings by the Human Rights Court. What it thinks is that our own courts, tribunals, here in the United Kingdom are going too far and that's also one of the reasons why it wants to replace the tribunal system with a new system of adjudicators. But until it ends up on the statute books, I mean, currently, is it the case that Article 8 essentially gives anyone who has children a right to challenge that deportation and probably have a fair expectation that deportation will not take place?

13:45Yes, it certainly gives people a right to challenge it. And one of the concerns of the government is that takes far too long. And by the time it's sorted out in various appeals, it might be too late to do anything about it. What their chances are, we don't know. The government has made its position very clear. even without changing the law that might have an impact on the tribunal judges it's certainly going to take several months a year or more to get this legislation through and then they've got to set up this new system of adjudicators recruit adjudicators to do the work and so on and that might take a year or two this is all going to take some time and in the meantime lawyers are perfectly entitled to put arguments to the tribunal system, which they think are proper to put forward on behalf of a client.

14:34But are those people who view this process as fatally flawed already, are they wrong to say that in the examples that we've been talking about already, that the public safety is less of a priority than the individual criminal's rights to, under Article 8, respect for their private and family life? Because that, I think, is the thing that sticks in the craw for most people. I can see why people feel that. It's very easy to say, you know, we don't like that person, kick him out. And that would lead to all sorts of consequences. There are political parties, as you know, who say that that should be an approach that we should take.

15:14There are others who say that if somebody has lived in this country and has established citizenship in this country, or even the established residents in this country and has paid a price for a crime, well, it's not necessarily appropriate to try and throw them out of the country.

15:38How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

16:18Now, whilst I certainly don't want to relitigate every single one of the deportation cases that has appeared on the front pages of the newspapers, because there have been plenty over the past few years, some of them, at least at first glance, do look ridiculous, do look egregious. Clevis Disha was an Albanian national who was not returned to his country because, reportedly, his son didn't like foreign chicken nuggets. Now, I suspect that it was a bit more complicated than that. It was much more complicated. That was one of the arguments that was put. And, in fact, at first instance, that argument was thrown out.

17:00But when the case came before the upper tribunal, the appeal tribunal, the judge said that a move to Albania would undo the progress that C the child has made over the years with ongoing dedicated support from his school and parents. The question really is whether this child should be punished for the behaviour of his father, or whether he should have a chance to get the education that he needs, or sent back to Albania where he might even do the same as his father did. These are complicated cases, but the government obviously has a duty to protect us all. Because of course, this is quite clearly a legal issue, but simultaneously it's a massive political one.

17:44And of late, the political shorthand has become the European Convention on Human Rights stops us from deporting foreign criminals. How accurate is that? I don't think it's accurate, but the government's position, I think the government is right on this, is that the way in which some of these cases have been interpreted by the courts here in the United Kingdom have made it difficult. Don't forget, these cases, if they get to the Human Rights Court, That takes five years usually, and most of them don't get there. Most of them are thrown out, filtered out by the court before they get anywhere near a decision.

18:20So we're really talking about how these cases are handled here in the United Kingdom. And it is perfectly possible for the government to change the law. That's the bill that was presented to Parliament this week in order to make it less likely that these human rights claims will go through the courts here in the UK if they're not valid, if they're not justified. And that seems to me to be the way forward. It's very easy to say pull out of the Human Rights Convention. That's after all what the Conservative Party wants to do. That's what reform wants to do. That has all sorts of consequences. It would involve probably leaving the Council of Europe, which is entirely separate from the EU.

18:59It would have implications for Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement and all that sort of thing. It's an easy thing to say. It would be a complicated thing to do. And it might not even solve the problem, which is, as the government sees it, the courts here are being too generous in circumstances where they simply have to be a little tougher. Joshua, do you think that the debate is changing around this? I mean, sometimes I have to say it does feel like we are moving from a discussion about how we deport criminals to a broader one about who should actually count as one of us. who is British?

19:34There is a great concern about this because some people seem to be saying that you're only British if you have white skin, however you want to define that. Now, that strikes me as entirely appalling. Some people say you're only British if your parents were born here in the United Kingdom. Well, that would exclude me. My father was not born in the United Kingdom. But I consider myself British, and I've always lived here. The question is really not what to do about people who are here now. The question is, do you want to limit immigration to this country? You've then, of course, got the problem of asylum, and the difficulties there.

20:19And there you have got international agreements, the Refugee Convention, and there are people who say that that needs to be modified. Now, that's never going to be modified, because you would need agreement of all the states, more than 100 that are members of it. But maybe our courts could take a slightly more restrictive view to the test of whether somebody has a well-founded fear of persecution if they're sent back to the country they've come from. So it is possible to adjust these things without taking drastic action. But as I say, government has to be aware of concern about this, and yet has to be fair and decent and keep within the law.

20:58But when it comes to Shabir Amit, where we started our conversation, look, neither of us are gambling men, Joshua. But I'm wondering what you think the chances are, given what we've heard from Andy Burnham, the legislation that's passing through the House at the moment, what we have heard from the Home Secretary and from Justice as well. What are the chances that he will end up getting deported from this country, do you think? I think they're very small. I think there are very limited chances in all the circumstances. I think all the factors that we've been discussing means it is very unlikely.

21:30But I wait to hear from the government if there is something that they can do. I don't claim to know their thinking. I don't claim to know all the legal provisions. All I'm saying is if there is something they can do, they should do this. Joshua, always a pleasure. Thanks very much. Now, if you've been affected by any of the issues Joshua and I were discussing, the Samaritans are always there 24-7. You can call them free of charge on 116 123. This is why it's back tomorrow.

22:22take an object, crack it open and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.