Government will ‘leave no stone unturned’ in effort to deport Rochdale rape gang leader Shabbir Ahmed

Justice Minister Jake Richards has told GB News that the government is doing everything it can to ensure that Rochdale rape gang leader Shabbir Ahmed is deported from the country.

Richards said: “All your viewers, and indeed the vast majority of the British public, want to see this man out of our country and away from our shores. The Home Secretary, and indeed her minister, Alex Norris, was in the House of Commons just yesterday, updating Parliament and the country as to what steps they are taking.

“Now, I’m not pretending this is easy. This is a long-standing issue where we have had foreign national criminals in our country who commit vile offences, and successive governments have been unable to deport to certain countries. Now, that’s not to say it’s good enough that we simply give up. The Home Secretary has made it clear, and the next Prime Minister, he’ll be walking to Downing Street in two weeks’ time, has made it clear that we will leave no stone unturned in trying to make sure that we get this man out of this country.

“Now, I can’t make guarantees to your viewers, I’d love to be able to, but the danger of politicians making guarantees that they can’t then implement is significant, but I can guarantee to your viewers that this government will do everything it can to deport this man.”

On sex offenders being released early under government plans, he said: “Most offenders always are released from prison at some point in their sentence, apart from perhaps those who receive whole life orders. What we need to do is make sure that we have a prison system that’s functioning.

“Now, when I say a prison system that’s functioning, a prison system that isn’t functioning is what we inherited in July 2024 when we only had a handful of places left in our prisons. Now, what does that mean? It means that courts can’t try cases, it means police can’t make arrests, that there is a real danger that if we don’t have a functioning prison system, that our whole law and order is completely undermined and chaos would spread across the country.

“I know this is difficult. I understand people’s anxieties about it. Before being an MP, I worked with victims of child sex abuse every day. I appreciate that these are really serious issues, but some of these difficult decisions will have to be made if we want to keep the system afloat to make sure we have law and order in this country.

“Now, we’ll always keep all options open because public safety is our absolute priority, but I cannot pretend to your viewers that difficult decisions won’t be needed to be taken.”

He added: “We have undertaken the biggest prison building programme for the last 150 years. We’ve built 3,200 new places in two years. For context, under the 14 years of the Conservatives, they only managed to do 500 places in 14 years, so we’ve done a lot better, and we’ve got a lot more to do, though. We are building, and we’re building at pace.”