Home Secretary quizzed over why grooming gang members haven't been deported

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been asked to explain why members of a notorious grooming gang in Rochdale have still not been deported a decade after dozens of girls were abused.

Tony Lloyd, the town's Labour MP, said he was shocked at the inaction by the Home Office in failing to deport.

Shabir Ahmed, 66, Qari Abdul Rauf, 50, Abdul Aziz, 48 and Adil Khan, 49, were among nine men convicted in 2012 of a catalogue of serious sex offences against vulnerable victims in Rochdale.

As the only groomers to have dual UK-Pakistani citizenship, they were at risk of being deported back to Pakistan but none of the four appear to have been deported or be facing deportation.

Ahmed, known as "daddy" in the gang, is still serving a 22-year jail term for rape but Rauf is back living at his home address in Rochdale and Aziz has also been seen in the town, locals say.

Khan's exact whereabouts are not known.

One woman who was abused wet herself and ran into a shop after spotting her attacker in the town centre recently, according to locals, and another victim bumped into her abuser in a nightclub only last week.

A spokeswoman for current Home Secretary, Rochdale-born Sajid Javid, has been approached for comment but has yet to respond.

Mr Lloyd has now tabled a question in Parliament and called on Mr Javid to explain.

The MP said: "I am as shocked about this as everyone else is in Rochdale, and the wider country.

"When the Home Office took on and won the capacity to take British citizenship from them, we were right to assume that this would be followed by deportation.

"These crimes were at the most serious level and victims deserve better.

"I would ask Sajid Javid to take urgent action. I want them to be deported.

"He needs to explain what they are doing. The public will be bewildered that the Home Office take the power to deport without them exercising that.''

The Home Office will not say whether a decision has been made to deport any of the four.

A spokeswoman said: "We do not routinely comment on individual cases."