Grooming gang leader relocated from Accrington hostel

A convicted child grooming gang leader has been relocated from a hostel in Accrington, Lancashire, after his placement there following prison release sparked widespread community outrage and political intervention. Shabir Ahmed, 73, was moved out of the borough this week after local residents and officials condemned the decision to house him near a children's playground and a mosque.

Ahmed, the ringleader of one of Britain's most notorious grooming gangs in Rochdale, was released from prison on July 2 after serving 14 years of a 22-year sentence. He was convicted in 2012 for multiple sexual offences, including the rape of girls as young as 12 or 13 between 2007 and 2009. Despite having his British citizenship revoked, he cannot currently be deported to Pakistan due to protections under the Immigration Act 1971, which forbids the removal of Commonwealth citizens who arrived in the UK more than 50 years ago.

The disclosure that he had been housed at a hostel in Accrington prompted a swift backlash. Kamran Mahmood, the general secretary of the Ghausia Rizvia Jamia Masjid mosque on Higher Antley Street, wrote to Lancashire Police warning that the placement was a "serious error of...