Two Pakistani heritage grooming gang rapists have launched another appeal against their removal from Britain, six years after they were supposed to be kicked out of the country, according to reports.
Adil Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf were both convicted in 2012 on a slew of charges related to the sexual abuse of children as young as 12, yet were released early and set loose onto the very same streets they once roamed, even running into their victims.
In 2015, then-home secretary Theresa May ruled that the predators should lose their British citizenship because of the heinous nature of their crimes and the fact that they still held Pakistani citizenship, saying that it would be “conducive to the public good” to revoke their right to remain in the country.
The group mounted a tax-payer funded challenge to the decision, saying that the ruling had violated their human rights. However, the appeal was later rejected in 2018. Since then, both Khan and Rauf have remained in Britain rather than being deported.
The Sun reported on Thursday that Khan has now launched another appeal, which is expected to be heard by an immigration judge some time in June. Rauf is also set to launch an appeal of his own in order to prevent the Home Office from sending him to Pakistan.
This week, Rauf candidly told a reporter that he was “surprised” that he had not been deported but that he did not believe that his removal is imminent.
A victim of Khan, who was impregnated by him when she was 13, said: “The fact they are appealing their sentences honestly makes me feel sick.”
“I have to live round here and it’s so easy to find me if they want to,” she told The Sun, adding: “We are nearly ten years on and me and the other victims are still being let down by the police and the legal system. No one seems to care.”
Maggie Oliver — the detective-turned-whistleblower who shed light on police failures to investigate primarily Muslim, Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs over fears that they would be accused of racism — said: “These girls deserve justice, not to be let down by the court system again.”
Lawyer Richard Scorer, who has represented many Rochdale grooming gang victims, told the newspaper: “This shows yet again that these men have no respect for the system and no remorse for what they put their victims through – to the point that they are walking the streets in the community many victims still live, making them all re-live the horror of their childhoods.
“The law should protect these victims and make sure they are able to try to live their lives without looking over their shoulder all the time.”
A report from the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam in 2016 claimed that some 84 per cent of grooming gang crimes were committed by Muslim men of South Asian backgrounds.
The study went on to say that grooming gangs specifically targeted young white girls as they were seen as “easy targets” compared to girls from their own communities, whom they felt should be “protected”.
Following the revelation earlier this month that Qari Abdul Rauf is still walking the streets of Rochdale, Home Secretary Priti Patel promised to “strain every sinew” to remove the child predators from the country.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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