Rape gang campaigner Maggie Oliver has said law stopping the deportation of Shabir Ahmed should have been addressed back in 2012.

Speaking on GB News, she said: “Well, she is extremely traumatised. She feels that once again victims and survivors are being kept at the bottom of the queue. They’ve had no voice, no say.

“I resigned because of what I saw in the police failures and the CPS failures in the handling of this case, and Greater Manchester Police later admitted it was borderline incompetent the way that it was handled.

“What makes me really angry, though, and what makes Ruby really angry is actually when Shabir Ahmed was convicted in 2012, he actually stood trial in two separate trials.”

She added: “The thing is, it was known back in 2012 that this 1971 Act existed, and today I’ve heard various politicians from different parties saying we are going to do something about this.

“My anger is that that law was in place in 2012. So whilst we’re being told these men are going to be deported, it was known, or should have been known, that that was going to be impossible.

“Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions then, the head of the CPS. How is it that 14 years later we are now at a place where they’re trying to close the stable door long after the horse has bolted.

“Again, it’s too little, too late. This could have been addressed.

“I heard Chris Philp say today that he’s going to add an amendment to a Bill that’s going through parliament at the moment. The Conservatives were in government when this trial happened. Things could be done.

“What I see repeatedly, and what Ruby feels, is that the government do nothing. They talk the talk, whichever government it is, they don’t walk the walk, and then we get a focus on it, like today.

“It will be a 24 hour, 48 hour wonder. This man, Shabir Ahmed, will go out. He has got contacts. She was threatened at the trial, and after the trial.

“She feels that there’s been no wraparound support for her. There is nobody there to help her and other survivors.

“I’m supporting her. I’ve known her for 15 years, but victims once again feel powerless in this whole process.

“This is not one isolated case. There were three men meant to be deported. We’re being told that Shabir Ahmed is going to be living in supported accommodation, he’s going to be tagged, he’s going to be signing on the sex offender’s register.

“Well, Ruby’s other abuser, who got pregnant when she was just 13…he wasn’t charged with rape. He, too, was released after four years. She bumped into him in the supermarket, not even knowing he was out of prison.

“So now this second abuser is released, and she’s terrified she’s going to bump into him too. Adil Khan has now absconded from the country. Nobody knows where he is.

“The whole system is broken, and we get little bits of information drip fed in. We need a joined up system where people communicate, where things are done in preparation for these moments, rather than waiting till we hit a brick wall.”