Key Facts

• Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang, was jailed for 22 years in 2012 for multiple counts of child sexual offences, including rape, and was released from prison on licence earlier this month.
• Ahmed was stripped of his British citizenship following his conviction, leaving him with only Pakistani nationality, but he cannot be deported due to a 1971 law that forbids the removal of certain Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.
• The 1971 Immigration Act bars the removal of any Commonwealth citizen who arrived in the UK before 1973 and had been in the country for five years, which applies to Ahmed, despite having had his British citizenship stripped when he was jailed.
• Ahmed was one of nine men from Rochdale and Oldham found guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13 at two takeaway restaurants, and after leaving prison, he was sent to 24-hour staffed accommodation and fitted with a GPS electronically monitored tag.
• The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, will set out the legal steps she will take to remedy the situation, with some suggesting that changing the 1971 Act could potentially take up to a year, although the Conservatives are pressing for the introduction of emergency legislation or an amendment to the current immigration bill.