Mubarek Ali: Community should have say in terms of release - councillor

Pat McCarthy, a Wellington town council member, said he has written to solicitors to find out if the community can be involved with the licence terms of Mubarek Ali.

Mr McCarthy, who stood for the Green Party in the Wrekin constituency in June's general election, says he wants to see practical solutions which will allow the community to heal.

Member for College Ward, he said: "I believe that the affected community and victims of the sexual grooming of vulnerable children should be given a voice in how Telford’s seven convicted criminal perpetrators are dealt with after their release.

"I am a councillor for the ward where Mubarak Ali and most of the other perpetrators lived, I also live and work in the ward.

"The courts have already made him the subject of a lifelong sexual prevention order which might include exclusion zones and other public protection orders on release, prohibiting him contacting gang members and the victims.

"I and my community feel this is a minimum requirement to safeguard this gang’s victims and to prevent any one of them creating more victims.

"Making Telford an exclusion zone and restricting communications not just for Ali but for the other six convicted will be a practical solution and allow our community to heal."

It comes after it was released that Mubarek Ali was not seen by a parole board ahead of the decision to release him in November.

Ali's release after five years has been triggered automatically as, with remand, he is technically half way through the custodial element of his 22 year sentence.

Ali, 34, of Regent Street Wellington, was given a sentence of 22 years – 14 years' immediate custody and eight years on licence for seven offences including child prostitution and trafficking.

Because his actual jail term was only 14 years of that total sentence, and because he served time in custody on remand before his sentence, his November release is automatic at the halfway point of his sentence.

But if he commits any offences while on licence, he is liable to be recalled to prison for the full 22 years.

Councillor McCarthy said there needs to be more immediate work done and that extending Ali's sentence will only go so far.

"Arguing for an extension of Ali’s sentence will only give us a temporary respite if it works at all, and will have to be fought every time another of the gang is released.

"We need a solution that applies to all of the gang that prevents them forever inflicting this perverted behaviour on others and allows their victims to sleep easy at night."