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Pakistani paedophile Shabir Ahmed has been released from prison as calls intensified for him to be deported. Grooming gang ringleader Ahmed hid in the back of a taxi as he was whisked out of HMP Leeds to a taxpayer-funded bail hostel. But pressure is mounting on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to close a loophole “that undermines public confidence” and deport the vile predator.

The pervert is currently protected by the Immigration Act 1971, which exempts Commonwealth citizens who arrived in Britain before 1973 from removal.

Downing Street said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has asked Ms Mahmood to consider options for ensuring Ahmed’s deportation, describing his case as “particularly heinous”.

But Reform’s Zia Yusuf said: “It makes my blood boil. You hear Government ministers talking about how ‘we’re going to do this’, you hear this rhetoric, you hear them call him names.

“The Tories had 14 years to get us as a country into the position where you can deport people, it makes me so angry, who are the ringleaders of the grooming gangs.

“What hope do we have as a country, if we cannot even deport a foreign national who was a ringleader in the Rochdale grooming gangs? Britain is utterly, utterly broken.

“We’re going to be watching this very, very closely. Andy Burnham has said he’s directing this person to do this and directing this person to do that, and everything is on the table.

“Well, in that case, he’ll have to declare his Labour Government will leave the ECHR. You’d better be certain, if they did try to deport him, even if they did amend the legislation, which of course they can – Parliament is sovereign – there are lawyers rubbing their hands in glee, salivating about using Article 8 or any of the other articles”.

Ahmed was held at HMP Leeds after serving much of his sentence at Category A HMP Wakefield.

He will be under 24-hour supervision, subject to electronic tagging and banned from entering Oldham, where he lived, or Rochdale, where he committed his crimes.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “Ahmed is a despicable paedophile who led a mob of Pakistani-origin men to gang rape young girls on a huge scale.

“He should be deported back to Pakistan, and the Government should support the amendment we plan to table, closing the loophole currently allowing him to stay.

“Vile criminals like Ahmed have no place in this country and the sooner he is gone the better.”

He added: “Any country who refuses to take back their own nationals should immediately have all foreign aid payments suspended and visa sanctions on escalating scale should be imposed – so the country refusing to take back its own nationals will not have visas issued to its citizens wishing to come to the UK.”

Two other key figures in the Rochdale grooming gang – Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan – have not been deported.

All three were stripped of their British citizenship after being convicted as ringleaders of the gang who sexually assaulted 47 girls over two years.

The fiends raped girls as young as 12 after plying them with alcohol and drugs in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried them to different flats in taxis, where cash was paid to use the girls for sex.

Sara Rowbotham, a former council worker whose team gathered evidence that led to the imprisonment of Ahmed and eight other men in Rochdale, said she was “terrified” by his release.

She said: “He has been on my mind ever since I heard that he was not going to be deported as promised.

“I am genuinely concerned that I will see him walk out of a local bail hostel near my house. If I feel like that, think how the women he abused must feel.

“This man organised some very nasty abuse of young girls. He was able to coerce, manipulate and organise a highly manipulative group of men, and when in court he was volatile in court and towards the judge. There have been no indications that his views have changed.

“The de-investment in probation services means that any monitoring of him and his behaviour is likely to be really weak. Who is going to make sure he and maybe others do not seek revenge?”

Labour MP Paul Waugh said: “I was pleased that ministers confirmed in Parliament that every option is being examined.

“But if every available route leads back to the same legal barrier, then Parliament should change the law.

“I believe the Home Secretary should have stronger powers to deport foreign nationals and former dual nationals convicted of the most serious sexual offences.

“There should not be legal loopholes that keep dangerous offenders in Britain when there is a lawful route to remove them.

“For too long, the victims of grooming gangs have carried the burden of institutional failure. We owe them more than sympathy. We owe them action.

“If this case has exposed a loophole that undermines public confidence and offends basic common sense, then we should close it.

“If there are quicker ways of booting him out of the country, we should explore those too.”

Labour MP for Oldham Jim McMahon said Ahmed was dangerous, had been refused parole three times and posed an “ongoing risk” to children.

Mr McMahon said: “Having had his British citizenship revoked, he should not be able to benefit from what is effectively a loophole in the Immigration Act 1971 that was intended to protect law-abiding Commonwealth citizens.

“Every available avenue should be explored to secure his deportation now that he has completed his sentence. If that requires a change in the law, then the law should be changed.”

The Home Office said it was considering closing the loophole and “doing everything possible” to deport foreign offenders.

Mr McMahon said: “I don’t believe that Pakistan wants to protect this person more than they want the relationship with the UK to be strong.

“But in the end it is about them prioritising it, it is about them stepping up, and it is about saying ‘I think Britain has a proud history of welcoming people, of being inclusive’.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “On his release, he [Ahmed] will be on the sex offenders register for life, ordered to stay away from his victims and banned from contacting any child or young person.

“As well as facing strict curfews and restriction zones, his every movement will be tracked, forced to wear an electronic tag. Should he breach his conditions, he will be immediately locked up.”