Victim describes horrific moment she ran into abuser on shopping trip
ATERRIFIED victim of Rochdale’s infamous child sex grooming gang has told how her heart ‘stopped beating’ when she bumped into her freed abuser while shopping in Asda.
She ran from the supermarket in tears and reported Adil Khan to the authorities as he was with another young child.
Now a young woman, she saw Khan, 50, with another child in an aisle of Asda superstore in Rochdale town centre.
She told a friend: “Oh my God, he’s been in Asda. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. I feel like my heart just stopped beating.”
She is outraged that Khan and two other members of the gang remain in Rochdale despite losing their appeal against deportation back to Pakistan two years ago.
Former taxi driver Khan, nick-named Billy, betrayed his wife when he started a relationship with the school-age girl just a few weeks after his wife had delivered their first child.
He got his victim, who thought he was her boyfriend, pregnant when she had just turned 13 and also trafficked a second girl, 15, to other abusers, using violence when she complained.
Khan, of Oswald Street in Rochdale, was jailed for eight years in 2012 but was released in 2016. A jury convicted him of trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child.
He was ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.
Although he was released from prison in 2016, he remained out on licence but that sentence has now elapsed.
However, he and two other members of the gang - the only members of the gang to have dual UK-Pakistani citizenship were told they would be deported after their British citizenship was revoked. The trio lost an appeal against the Home Office ruling in 2018 but, despite that, they remain in the UK.
Khan, together with Qari Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz remain in Rochdale, it is believed.
The trio were among nine men mostly Pakistani heritage men convicted and jailed in 2012 over a catalogue of serious sex offences against five vulnerable victims in Rochdale and Heywood where young white girls were plied with drink, abused and then shared with other abusers at parties held across the north of England.
After The Express reported how the three men remained in Rochdale despite efforts to deport them, Adil Khan’s younger victim has revealed her outrage at the failure to deport him.
The young woman who cannot be named as a victim of a sex crime but who was Ruby in the BBC drama about the scandal Three Girls - confided in former GMP detective Maggie Oliver who worked on the police investigation but later resigned in disgust at how victims were treated and turned whistleblower and campaigner.
Maggie told the Express: “She walked into an aisle and was face-to-face with him. He had a seven or eight-year-old child with him. How can he have a child in his care? She just left her trolley and ran out in tears and called me.
“The question is why are they still here? Why are they back in Rochdale? What about the rights of the children they abused? It really is outrageous.”
The incident, which happened on November 14 last year, was reported to Rochdale’s safeguarding board, which includes police and council officials and is tasked with protecting children and the victims of sexual abuse.
Maggie went on: “I don’t necessarily blame the safeguarding board. These are the consequences of these sentences. These men should have had longer sentences. The children who have been abused have to live with that for the rest of their lives and that’s just not right.
“This is not the only incident where one of the survivors has come faceto-face with their abuser. This isn’t unique.”
She revealed that the young woman who encountered Khan ‘now feels nervous every time she goes out’.
The Express reported last year that grooming victims were bumping into their abusers in Rochdale.
Rochdale Borough Council leader Allen Brett said: “The government must now finally act to have these men removed from the country. The council is providing support to many of the victims of these terrible crimes and have for many years now been helping to bring more perpetrators of sexual abuse to justice.
“That work will continue but only the Home Secretary can provide further closure by fulfilling the previous promises that have been made to deport the offenders whose citizenship has been removed.”
A spokesperson for the Home Office refused to outline why the three men had not yet been deported.
They said: “We are committed to removing foreign national offenders wherever possible. Foreign national offenders should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them, and since 2010 we have removed more than 52,000 criminals.”