Andy Burnham, likely next UK PM, wants grooming gang leader deported to Pakistan

Andy Burnham, widely expected to succeed Keir Starmer as Britain’s new prime minister later this month, is leading calls for the deportation of a grooming gang ringleader to Pakistan after he was released from prison on Thursday.

Burnham, the MP for Makerfield, likely to be elected unopposed later this month after Starmer’s recent resignation, said he will “review all options” to remove Shabir Ahmed — convicted in 2012 of multiple charges of rape and sexual offences against young girls.

The scandal, which rocked Rochdale in Greater Manchester, falls within Burnham’s patch as the region’s former mayor and has hit the headlines again after it emerged that Ahmed is protected under a 1970s law that blocks his deportation.

“Like everyone, I want this vile criminal out of the country. Victims must come first,” said Burnham.

“I will ask the Home and Foreign Secretaries to review all possible options — and they should consider nothing is off the table,” he said. Ahmed, a 73-year-old dual national, was stripped of his British citizenship when he was sentenced to 22 years' imprisonment by a UK court.

However, a Probation Service letter informing victims of his early release under a prison scheme this week revealed that as per the UK’s Immigration Act 1971, any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in the UK before 1973 and had been here for at least five years cannot be deported.

The issue is said to have been further complicated by the fact that there is reluctance on the part of the receiving country, Pakistan, to accept the criminal.