Rape gang whistleblower Maggie OIiver has revealed she is having to intervene on behalf of victims to get security measures in place as their abusers are being released.
Speaking on GB News she said: “For me, the issues around this really are that the trial was in 2012. Shabir Ahmed was actually sentenced to 41 years in prison in two cases. They were served concurrently, not consecutively.
“Now, at the same trial, the judge said he would be deported on release. That was what 14 years ago, and we are only now looking at this issue once he has been released back into the community.
“For me, the issues are about governments not being proactive but being reactive all the time. I think that they thought that this case would have faded from memory.
“But the Rochdale case, which is the one I resigned over, because the girls allowed their story to be told in the drama ‘The Girls’. it actually is the case that keeps on giving. It keeps on showing where these gaps in the system are.
“Shabir Ahmed is a child rapist who was operating systematically, abusing dozens of children. He is one child rapist among many thousands throughout the country. And I think focusing on deportation for me is actually deflecting from the bigger picture, which is about victims being once again abandoned, their voices not considered, feeling terrified for their own safety when he’s released back into the community.
“Yet there is no agency there that has any kind of responsibility or duty to protect them or to see whether they need any help.
“The other thing is that he’s been released on license. He is on electronic tag under the supervision of probation and only last week we had a national audit which reported that they needed at least another 2200 probation officers because it wasn’t safe.
“The electronic tagging is not fit for purpose, and the little girl Ruby from Rochdale, her rapist who got her pregnant when she was 13, he was also on a tag. He was also signing on the sex offenders register, and he absconded the country.
“So for me, the issue is far far wider than this deportation. And bear in mind we’ve got this conversation today. We can say whatever we want, but right now Pakistan is saying they’re not going to have him back anyway.
“We should have resolved this 14 years ago. We’re kind of being distracted by something that might never happen, and yet the criminal justice system and victim failure, the failures are monumental, and that’s where we really need to be focusing our attention and that’s where I would like to see the government address what’s going on throughout the country.
“When I worked on this case, Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions. He rubber stamped those conditions for which Shabir Ahmed was released. I find it inconceivable that he or the judge did not know that there was a 50-year-old law, an antiquated law, that would prevent Shabir Ahmed or any abuser from Pakistan from being deported.
“What I think that they were counting on was that this case would fade away like all the others. But we know about Rochdale because of the drama, because those children allowed their worst moments to be displayed to the country.
“But Shabir Ahmed is one of thousands throughout the country and the system is broken. I don’t have any faith that we will see movement.
“The words are very easy, but we do not see action. What I would like to see is an agency or department at least that has responsibility for victims, because as soon as they’ve given evidence in a trial, they are bottom of the pile. They are an afterthought.
“The victim contact scheme has got a duty to inform them what’s gone on if they opt in, but they have no duty to make sure that the children or the victims are feeling safe, have got security measures.
“Even last week, in relation to Ruby, I had to put a call into the Assistant Chief Constable to get a panic alarm and some security measures for young Ruby, who I had never heard to be as terrified as she was last week.
“And yet, not every Ruby has got somebody like me with a hotline to an ACC. These are real failures for looking after victims.
“I don’t actually care about Shibir Ahmed. I wish they’d left him in prison for 41 years. And if we’re short of prison places, build another big prison on the top of Dartmoor.
“For me, we’re talking about the wrong things. We should be talking about changes in the system. If somebody’s sentenced for 41 years, I want to see them serve 41 years, not 14, and then come out.
“These victims carry the trauma for the rest of their lives, and we need to start looking at that.”