Justice for sex gang’s victims

I AM pleased that members of the Rochdale grooming gang and their ringleader Shabir Ahmed have lost their battle to maintain British citizenship.

This is the first step towards getting these men sent back to Pakistan to serve their time.

Deportation will not only give further justice to their victims, but will also be a victory for British taxpayers whose hard-earned money should not be used to incarcerate these men in the UK.

This decision has been a long time coming. When Theresa May was Home Secretary I pushed her to send these paedophiles back to their country of origin to serve their sentences.

In November last year, I raised this case in Parliament and wrote to the Justice Minister urging him to look into the matter.

We welcome many people coming to the UK, to contribute, but if they break the law then they should lose their right to live here.

Foreign-born criminals should not be able to hide behind human rights laws to avoid deportation.

We recently saw reports of lawyers profiteering from attempts to stop these men being deported. These lawyers were using delaying tactics to spin out the case and I will be writing to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society asking them to investigate this farcical situation.

This case has made a mockery of justice.

I will carry on fighting on behalf of the victims of this grooming gang.

Shabir Ahmed and other gang members must now be deported to a Pakistani prison as soon as possible and we must get assurances from the Pakistani authorities that they will serve their full sentences.