Mubarek Ali prison release: Protecting public our top priority, says probation service
The probation service has said “public protection” is its top priority, as details of the restrictions placed on a Telford sex offender come to light.
Mubarek Ali is due to be released from prison after being jailed for 14 years for his part as one of the ringleaders of the grooming gang snared by Operation Chalice.
At the end of last week, details came to light from a briefing from HM Prisons and Probation Service about the restrictions he will face while on licence.
Ali, formerly of Regents Street in Wellington, will no longer be able to return to Telford or Shrewsbury, and will be prevented from having contact with those involved in the case.
Today, HMPPS affirmed the need for stricter sentences for offenders like Ali.
A HMPPS spokesperson said: “Public protection is our top priority. Sex offenders on licence are subject to a strict set of conditions, and any offender who fails to comply risks being returned to prison or facing further punishment.
“It is absolutely right that those who commit abhorrent sexual offences serve significant sentences, which is why we have made sentences tougher to ensure serious and dangerous sex offenders can be made to serve longer in prison.”
Also known as Max, Ali was named as one of the ringleaders of the gang, following a police investigation dubbed Operation Chalice, and saw victims as young as 12.
The investigation revealed details of a network of men from who targeted young and vulnerable teenage girls.
After West Mercia Police’s investigation into suspected under-age sex and child prostitution, seven men were finally convicted at Worcester Crown Court in 2013, after cases stretching over two years, including Ali, 34, who was given 22 years, 14 years immediate custody and eight years on licence, for seven offences – four of controlling child prostitution, causing child prostitution and two offences of trafficking in the UK for the purpose of prostitution, involving two of the victims.
He was also made the subject of a lifelong sexual offences prevention order.
The court heard the young girls were offered cash, gifts and free car journeys before being taken to the restaurant to have sex.
Ali’s release was triggered automatically and at no time was the parole board involved in the decision to allow him to be freed in November.
But the briefing from the probation service says that he will be under strict conditions for the eight years of his extended license period.
Ali’s long license period is called an Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS) and is available for the court to impose where they consider the offender to be dangerous.
An offender must serve at least two thirds of the sentence in prison and an extended period on licence to protect the public.
For sex offenders the maximum extension period can be up to eight years on licence, as seen in the case of Ali, on top of the custodial term during which the offender may be recalled to prison if a breach of the conditions is considered to put the public at risk.
In 2015, two years after Ali was sentenced, the EDS was strengthened further, all offenders given that type of sentence are now subject to discretionary release by the Parole Board between the two-thirds and end points; they will not be released before the end of the custodial terms unless the Board is satisfied that it would be safe to do so.
They are then on licence, and liable to recall, until the end of the extension period.
