Paedophile Rochdale grooming gang member argues he shouldn’t be deported to Pakistan

A member of the notorious Rochdale grooming gang has told a judge that he should not be deported back to Pakistan because his son needs a role model.

Adil Khan, 51, and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, have been told they will be sent back to Pakistan for the good of the British public, after both were part of a gang convicted of a catalogue of serious sex offences in May 2012.

For two years from early 2008, girls as young as 12 were plied with alcohol and drugs and gang-raped in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried to different flats in taxis where cash was paid to use the girls. 

Since release from jail on licence in 2016, they have fought a long legal battle against deportation – mounting multiple legal challenges and appeals – spanning several years on the grounds that deportation would interfere with their human rights. 

But now both Khan and Rauf will finally hear if they can remain in the UK after a date for their deportation case was set for later this year.

Khan appeared at a final deportation hearing on Wednesday to argue he should not be deported, where Judge Charlotte Welsh asked him how his son might be affected if he was deported from the UK.

Khan, speaking through a Miripuri interpreter, replied: ‘As you know, the father figure is very important in every culture in the world, to be a role model for the child, to tell him or her right from wrong.’

Adil Khan, 51 (pictured), a member of the notorious Rochdale grooming gang who got a 13-year-old girl pregnant, has told a judge that he should not be deported to Pakistan because his son needs a role model

Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf – who can still move freely around Rochdale – were among nine Asian men convicted for sex offences against vulnerable girls in 2012. Police fear as many as 47 victim may have been groomed by the gang.

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Failure to deport any of the gang has led to widespread anger in Rochdale, where victims realised they had been living alongside their recently-released tormentors.

A string of Home Secretaries have also come under fire after being accused of failing to act after members of the group were ordered to be deported in 2015. 

Khan also claimed he is not wanted by his family back in Pakistan because his notoriety would be bad for the business they own.

Failure to deport any of the grooming gang has led to anger in Rochdale, where victims were living alongside their tormentors, and has heaped public criticism on a number of home secretaries.

Khan got a 13-year-old girl pregnant, but denied he was the father, then met another girl, 15, and trafficked her to others using violence when she complained.

Adil Khan, 51, and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52 (pictured), have been told they will be sent back to Pakistan for the good of the British public, after both were part of a gang convicted of a catalogue of serious sex offences in May 2012

Rauf, a father-of-five, trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her to secluded areas to have sex with her in his taxi and ferry her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others had sex with her.

For two years, from 2008, a gang of men in Rochdale preyed on girls as young as 12, plying them with alcohol and drugs before they were gang-raped in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried to different flats in taxis where cash was paid to use them.

Police said as many as 47 girls were groomed.

The appeal hearing against both men was adjourned until Thursday morning.