Grooming gang member Qurban Ali has become the latest predator to be released back onto the streets after serving only a small portion of his prison sentence.
The 59-year-old, convicted of conspiracy to rape in 2016 and imprisoned at the same time as three nephews, has been pictured walking the streets in traditional cultural dress a mere five miles from the scene of his crimes in Rotherham by the Daily Mail, having served only five years of a ten-year sentence.
While those few grooming hang members who have been successfully prosecuted since the authorities finally stopped ignoring their crimes are often reported to have received harsh sentences by the authorities and media, the headline figures are generally misleading, as criminals handed multiple terms are often allowed to serve them concurrently — i.e. at the same time — and they are almost always entitled to automatic early release on licence halfway or, more rarely, two-thirds of the way through their term.
One of the most infamous examples was Telford rape gang ringleader Mubarek Ali, who was released after serving just seven years of what had been described as a 22-year-sentence — although he was later reimprisoned for flagrantly disregarding his licence conditions.
Such measures can come too late for people victimised by criminals who reoffend while notionally restrained by licence conditions, however.
Ali’s early release has been condemned by grooming gang victim turned victims’ advocate Sammy Woodhouse, who branded it a “disgrace”.
“None of those convicted as part of the grooming gang scandal should be allowed in South Yorkshire. It’s far too close. Some of us live and work in Rotherham and Sheffield,” she told the Mail.
“But people like him and the people he associates with don’t care whatsoever about people like me, they never have and never will,” she lamented.
Neither of the two MPs currently competing to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and, by extension, Prime Minister, have raised the issue of grooming gangs, predators being allowed to return to the communities they victimised, or soft prison sentences during their leadership campaigns.
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