Rochdale grooming gang members lose deportation appeal

Two members of the Rochdale grooming gang have lost an appeal against deportation after a seven-year legal battle.

Adil Khan, 51, and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, were told they would be sent back to Pakistan after release from jail for the public good.

They were both convicted of a catalogue of child sex offences in May 2012.

Immigration judges ruled their challenge against deportation on human rights grounds had failed.

The appeal was heard at an immigration tribunal in June with a decision made in August, but judges have only just released their legal ruling.

It stated Khan had shown a "breath-taking lack of remorse" and in his and Rauf's case there was a "very strong public interest" in them being kicked out of the UK.

Khan had told the hearing he wanted to stay in the UK to be a "role model" for his son and "teach him right from wrong".

Both men tried to use human rights laws as reasons not to be removed and said they both had certificates "renouncing" their Pakistani citizenship.

The pair, along with another man - Abdul Aziz - had fought and lost a long legal battle against an order depriving them of UK citizenship, the prelude to deportation, losing a final Court of Appeal ruling in 2018.

During the appeal hearing it emerged Aziz, a ringleader of the gang, had been allowed to remain in the UK because he had also renounced his Pakistani citizenship but earlier than the other two and just days before the Court of Appeal ruling.

Khan got a 13-year-old girl pregnant, but denied he was the father, then met another girl, 15, and trafficked her for others to abuse, using violence when she complained.

Rauf, a father-of-five, trafficked a 15-year-old girl, driving her to secluded areas to sexually abuse her in his taxi and ferry her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others abused her.

Just nine men were jailed for their part in the gang.