Rochdale grooming gang ringleader STILL living in city where he abused kids – 9 years after losing right to remain in UK

A ROCHDALE grooming gang ringleader is still living in the city where he abused children - despite losing the right to remain in the UK.

Qari Abdul Rauf, 54, was part of a nine-strong gang of Asian men convicted of sex offences against vulnerable girls in 2012.

Up to 47 girls as young as 12 were plied with alcohol and drugs and gang-raped across Rochdale during a two-year reign of terror.

Rauf was locked up for six years but released in November 2014 after serving two years and six months of his sentence.

Then-Home Secretary Theresa May ordered him to be sent back to Pakistan as it would as it would be "conducive to the public good".

But nine years later, Rauf still remains in Rochdale where his victims are forced to live alongside him.

The predator lives in a smart, three-bedroom semi-detached home in the city where schoolchildren regularly walk past, reports.

Rauf and fellow gang leader Adil Khan, who got a 13-year-old girl pregnant, are still fighting against their deportation orders.

They lost a lengthy battle in 2018 but later launched another case - insisting the order breaches their human rights as they both have wives and children in the UK.

Their appeals were rejected but both men still remain in Britain.

Both fiends claimed to have renounced their Pakistani citizenship which would make them "stateless" - a bar to deportation.

It comes after a damning report found children were left at the "mercy" of grooming gangs by the police.

The 173-page report was authored by Mr Newsam and Gary Ridgeway, a former detective superintendent, following allegations by whistleblowers Sara Rowbotham and Maggie Oliver.

The pair's battle to bring abusers to justice and expose their horrific crimes was revealed in BBC show Three Girls.

GMP has since apologised and said similar cases are handled very differently now.

They have launched further investigations, which have so far resulted in the conviction of 42 men involved in the abuse of 13 children.