Pedophile Grooming Gang Receive Over $1M in Legal Aid to Fight Deportation
The pedophiles, who raped children as young as 13, are now receiving taxpayers money
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Members of the pedophile Asian grooming gang, responsible for trafficking children for sex in the UK, have received over $1 million in legal aid to help them defend criminal charges and fight deportation.
The pedophiles, who raped children as young as 13 years old, are now receiving British taxpayers' money to help them retain their British passport and stay in the country.
Despite the sick and depraved nature of their crimes, the "grooming gang" is using Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which safeguards their right to family life.
The pedophile grooming gang, who raped, abused and tortured countless young children, claims that being removed from the UK will 'harm their families.'
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According to the DailyMail: Shabir Ahmed, 64 – the ringleader of the Rochdale child sex gang – Abdul Aziz, Adil Khan and Abdul Rauf all received hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal aid at their original trial.
By contrast, Chris Gard and Connie Yates were denied any legal aid in their case against Great Ormond Street Hospital to take sick 11-month-old son Charlie to the US for experimental therapy.
Victims of the IRA Hyde Park bomb attack have also been refused legal aid to fund a private prosecution against chief suspect John Downey, 64, who is accused of murdering four soldiers and injuring 31 in the July 1982 atrocity.
David Spencer, of the Centre For Crime Prevention think-tank, said:
‘These men have been convicted of some truly shocking offenses, and it beggars belief that they are now able to run up even bigger taxpayer-funded bills making spurious appeals to extend their stay in the UK.
‘These men clearly pose a threat to public safety. If someone is born overseas and commits such crimes in the UK, it is absolutely right that their citizenship should be revoked.’
Tory MP Philip Davies, a former member of the Commons’ Justice Select Committee, said: ‘These are astronomical sums and it will rightly appall people who will think the money could be better spent on the justice system rather than subsidizing pedophiles chancing their arms on staying in the country.’
The four Pakistani men were convicted in May 2012 of preying on girls in Rochdale, plying them with drink and drugs before they were ‘passed around’ for sex.
Ahmed was given a 19-year sentence for conspiracy, two rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault, and sex trafficking.
The others were given terms of between six and nine years and are already back on the streets after being released from jail.
Figures released to the under the Freedom of Information Act show that they billed the taxpayer £1,009,645 for their unsuccessful court battle.
Ahmed was granted £249,707, Rauf £282,370, Khan £282,289, and Aziz £195,277.
But the figures are set to rise as three of the men are spending tens of thousands of pounds paying lawyers working on their bid to beat deportation.
The gang appealed in the civil courts against Theresa May’s decision as Home Secretary to strip the dual-nationals of their British citizenship as a prelude to deportation proceedings.
It emerged that Aziz, 46, Khan, 47, and Rauf, 48, had secured legal aid for this challenge.
In February, Britain’s most senior immigration judge Mr. Justice McCloskey, president of the Upper Immigration Tribunal, rejected the human rights grounds on which the men based their appeals.
But they have now been granted permission to continue their fight at the Court of Appeal – meaning the case could drag on.
Divorced father-of-four Ahmed, a takeaway worker, used his trial to launch a series of tirades, including one in which he tried to blame Western society for allowing young girls to ‘parade on the streets’ where they could be preyed on by men such as him.
Last year he lost a bid to overturn his convictions using human rights laws. He had taken his case to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming his convictions for child sex offenses were a conspiracy by police and the jury to ‘scapegoat’ Muslims.
Mark Tipper, whose younger brother Trooper Simon Tipper was one of four soldiers murdered in the Hyde Park blast in July 1982, said the legal aid payments were ‘disgraceful.’
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Ed Davey said: ‘This shows the legal aid system is broken and urgently needs to be fixed.’
In criminal cases, a person cannot receive legal aid if their household incomes are more than £37,500. For civil cases, they cannot win if they earn more than £31,884 in pre-tax income or have at least £8,796 in disposable income and £8,000 savings and assets.
Earlier this week it was revealed hate preacher Anjem Choudary received more than £140,000 in legal aid in his bid to dodge prison for gathering support for Islamic State.
