Rochdale’s MP Paul Waugh has stepped up his calls for the town’s grooming gang members to be deported back to Pakistan after the UK government agreed the restoration of direct flights by Pakistan International Airlines.
Mr Waugh welcomed the end of a five-year ban on flights between Manchester and Islamabad after a five-year ban, following improvements in the safety standards of the airline.
He said that he hoped it showed the close working between the two governments that was needed to get Pakistan to accept the return of grooming gang ringleaders Adil Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf.
Both men were Pakistani nationals convicted in 2012 for a number of child sex offences, and are now out of jail having served their sentences.
Khan was jailed for eight years for conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child and trafficking a child within the UK.
Rauf was convicted of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child and trafficking a child within the UK and was jailed for six years.
Both tried to fight their deportation on the grounds of human rights, but after several court cases in 2018 the Court of Appeal dismissed their case.
In August 2022, they both lost a final deportation appeal after immigration tribunal judges dismissed their claim that there were potential violations of human rights law surrounding their return to Pakistan.
The two men have renounced their Pakistani citizenship and argued that they cannot be returned, but the country’s government has the right to take them if it so wishes.
Mr Waugh, who has made the deportation of the men a key issue since his election last year and has urged Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to boot them out of Britain, said the airline news looked like progress.
“This is very welcome news. I know that this decision will have been taken solely on the basis of the safety improvements made by the airline and is not linked to deportations,” he said.
“But it indicates exactly the kind of close working relationship we need between the UK and Pakistan to pave the way for the return of Pakistani nationals deported from the UK – including the men convicted for being Rochdale grooming gang members.
“The last government failed to kick these vile paedophiles out of Britain. I know there will be further steps needed but I’m determined to ensure this government takes the action the people of Rochdale – particularly the victims of this sick pair – rightly want to see.”
One of Khan’s victims – whom he made pregnant at the age of 13 – has talked of her shock at seeing him in a Rochdale supermarket after his release from prison.
Mr Waugh wrote to the Home Secretary months ago to say that it was also deeply shocking that these men’s long legal challenge – they appeared before 12 judges, during hearings at three crown courts, a number of immigration tribunals and the Court of Appeal – was funded by more than £550,000 of public money under the last Tory government.
He has held several meetings with Home Office and Foreign Office ministers on the subject too this year.
The UK ban on all Pakistani airlines was imposed in 2020, days after Pakistan launched an investigation into the validity of pilot licences issued in the country following a PIA plane crash that killed 97 people.
The British High Commission said on Wednesday the lifting of the ban followed safety improvements by Pakistani authorities. The decision comes just months after the European Union took similar steps.
Some British newspapers have reported Pakistani officials as saying that if the flights resumed, it would make it easier to accept the deportation of the grooming gang members.
But the UK government has made clear there is no such direct linkage of the two issues and negotiations on both were being done separately.
Mr Waugh was among the first MPs to call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs and was pleased when the Government accepted Dame Louise Casey’s recommendation to set one up last month.