In their application to stay in the UK, Adil Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf cited the European Convention on Human Rights and stated that they had renounced their Pakistani citizenship.
Two members of a sex grooming gang in Rochdale have lost their long-running appeal against deportation to Pakistan.
Adil Khan, 51, and Qari Abdul Rauf, 52, had fought the deportation on human rights grounds but an immigration tribunal said they should be removed from the UK.
Judges said Khan had shown a “breathtaking lack of remorse” and that there was a “very strong public interest” in both men being kicked out.
The decision was made in August and released publicly today.
The pair were convicted in May 2012 and were part of the gang that groomed dozens of girls for sex in the Lancashire town.
The gang of nine operated for two years from 2008, plying girls as young as 12 with alcohol and drugs and gang-raping them at various locations, sometimes “pimping” them out for money.
As many as 47 girls were abused, according to police. The victims were often criminalized by authorities and were in and out of court.
Khan’s abuse included getting a 13-year-old pregnant and using the threat of violence to pass a 15-year-old around to other men.
He had argued at his last hearing in June that he shouldn’t be deported because his son needed a role model.
Father-of-five Rauf also trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her in his taxi to secluded areas and to a flat where he and others would abuse her.
After being freed from jail in 2014 and 2016 respectively, Rauf and Khan mounted a long campaign to try to avoid being kicked out of the UK after their British citizenship was revoked.
They cited article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a private and family life, as the reason why they shouldn’t be deported.
Lawyers for the men also argued they were “stateless” because they had certificates showing they had renounced their Pakistani citizenship.
The grooming case was dramatised in the BBC programme Three Girls, but there’s still anger in Rochdale that none of the men have been deported.
The girl Khan got pregnant with reportedly once came “face to face” with him and a child in Asda and ran out of the shop crying.
In April, Greater Manchester Police apologised to three victims for failing to protect them. The force admitted: “GMP could and should have done much more to protect you and we let you down.”
Campaigners criticised the apology as being “10 years too late” and said the girls had been treated with contempt.
A report also revealed that the ringleader of the Rochdale gang, Shabir Ahmed, had once been employed as a welfare rights officer by Oldham Council despite multiple concerns being raised against him.
Ahmed is serving a 22-year sentence.
A Home Office statement after the deportations were approved said: “The crimes committed by the Rochdale child sexual exploitation group who preyed on the young and vulnerable were truly appalling and have no place in our society.
“That is why we are determined to take whatever action is available to us within the law to make sure perpetrators are brought to justice and to protect victims”