Two members of the infamous Rochdale child rape grooming gang are reportedly finally set to be deported to their native Pakistan after years of taxpayer-funded appeals.
Following a seven year legal process, Adil Khan, 51, and Qari Abdul Rauf, 53, are allegedly set to be removed from the United Kingdom. The pair were convicted in 2012 on a slew of charges related to the sexual abuse of children as young as 12.
Despite the heinous nature of their crimes, they were released from prison early and set free onto the same streets where they once preyed on young girls, at least one of whom was horrified when she saw her rapist in a local supermarket.
In 2015, then-home secretary Theresa May ruled that Khan and Rauf — both of whom had obtained British passports — should have their UK citizenship revoked and be deported to their native Pakistan, arguing that it would be “conducive to the public good” to revoke their right to remain in the country.
However, at the last minute, the pair claimed that they had renounced their Pakistani citizenship and that deporting them to their home country would violate their human rights. Since then, the grooming gang rapists have appeared before twelve judges during a series of tax-payer funded appeals.
According to a report from the Guardian, the legal challenges have cost the British public some £550,000.
The ruling to finally deport the pair, which was made in August, was released to the public on Wednesday. The presiding judges in the case, Charlotte Welsh and Siew Ling Yoke said that there is a “very strong public interest” to deport them as soon as possible.
Judges said Khan had shown a “breathtaking lack of remorse” about his part in the nine-member grooming gang that police believe abused as many as 47 vulnerable girls in Rochdale between 2008 and 2010.
Qari Abdul Rauf was also convicted of trafficking a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her to secluded areas to have sex with her in his taxi and bringing her to an apartment in Rochdale where he and others raped her.
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