Andy Burnham has vowed to ask government ministers to “review all possible options” to ensure the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang can be deported.
The Makerfield MP, who is widely expected to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister later this month, on Wednesday signalled a hardline approach to perpetrators involved in the grooming gang scandal, after it was revealed ringleader Shabir Ahmed, 73, cannot be deported due to a legal loophole.
Responding to the news, the prospective prime minister wrote: “Like everyone, I want this vile criminal out of the country. Victims must come first.
“I will ask the Home and Foreign Secretaries to review all possible options – and they should consider nothing is off the table.”
Ahmed known to his victims as “Daddy”, will be freed on Thursday after serving 14 years in jail since his conviction in 2012 for multiple rape and sexual offences against young girls.
Documents published online, apparently from the Probation Service to one of Ahmed’s victims, state he will be released on 2 July and cannot be deported back to Pakistan due to provisions in the Immigration Act 1971 which bar his removal.
These are that he arrived in the UK before 1973 and has lived in the UK for at least five years before his deportation was considered.
The failure to deport multiple men with dual nationality convicted of serious child sex offences in grooming gangs has caused deep anger in many communities and heaped pressure on politicians.
A national inquiry into grooming gangs was announced earlier this year after the government came under increasing criticism.
In 2022, Mr Burnham, then the mayor of Greater Manchester, called on the Tory government “to do everything within… the government’s power” to deport grooming gang members.
A review into child sex abuse in Manchester and Rochdale was also launched by him in 2017, which later included Oldham and in 2025 said he would back a “limited” national inquiry into grooming gangs,
But he has faced intense criticism from political opposition on his record, which Reform UK have claimed is “indefensible”.
A spokesperson for the Home Office said on Tuesday: “Our thoughts are first and foremost with the victims of these appalling crimes.
“On his release he will be on the sex offenders register for life, ordered to stay away from his victims and banned from contacting any child or young person.
“As well as facing strict curfews and restriction zones, his every movement will be tracked, forced to wear an electronic tag. Should he breach his conditions, he will be immediately locked up.”
