Courts too lenient as Heroin Scourge hits Bradford...

DRUG PEDDLER FREED BY JUDGE!!!

Little Horton man dealt drugs from hired Mercedes-Benz

Wednesday 27th May 2009

A 20-year-old man caught peddling heroin has been spared custody after his life was devastated by a traumatic road crash.

Rizwan Najib, of Sawrey Place, Little Horton, Bradford, was told by a judge he was free to go at a sentencing hearing at Bradford Crown Court today.

Najib pleaded guilty to possessing heroin with intent to supply and possessing £680 drugs money last June.

The court heard he was selling drugs on Bradford streets in a hired Mercedes-Benz.

Najib told police he was dealing for two weeks to discharge a debt. He asked to be kept in custody pending sentence for his own protection.

The judge, Recorder Bernard Gateshill, said Najib was physically and psychologically frail after the accident.

He sentenced him to a 12-month community order with an Intensive Alternative to Custody course and supervision.

“There is little risk of you reoffending. You are free to go,” the judge told him.

And there's more...

(All the below cases were reported in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, 28th April 2009 - June 9th 2009)

Jail for Bradford addict who sold heroin and crack cocaine

Tuesday 28th April 2009

A judge warned of a drugs “pandemic” in the Bradford area as he today sentenced a heroin and crack cocaine street dealer to two and a half years’ imprisonment.

Judge Alistair McCallum told Mohammed Choudry he had to jail him for his first drug-peddling offences because the problem in the area was so acute.

Choudry, 25, of Jasmin Terrace, Girlington, Bradford, pleaded guilty to selling wraps of the Class A drugs in the Whetley Lane area of Girlington in June last year.

Choudry admitted five offences, four involving drug dealing and one of possessing £358 cash as criminal property.

Prosecutor Gavin Howie said Choudry was caught with 13 wraps of heroin and eight of crack cocaine in his hired VW Golf.

He told police he had been selling the drugs for four days to pay off a debt.

Choudry’s barrister Tim Stead said he was of good character, in work and from a respectable family. He became addicted to crack cocaine, ran up a £100 a day habit, and was supplied on credit.

Mr Stead said Choudry’s dealer had told him to deal on the streets to pay off the amount he owned.

Brothers plotted to supply drugs, court told

Wednesday 29th April 2009

Six men, including two Bradford brothers, have gone on trial accused of a plot to supply heroin and cocaine.

Shafiqul Ali, 28, and Sham-sul Islam, 31, both of St George’s Place, Little Horton, deny conspiracy to supply Class A drugs between January 31 and July 19 last year.

In the dock with them at Bradford Crown Court are Quayes Ahmed, 28, of London; Andrew Bullock, 31, of Middlesex; Ian Waldron, 46, of Liverpool and Joseph Housen, 30, of Harehills, Leeds. The four plead not guilty to conspiring with others to supply Class A drugs on single dates in June and July 2008.

Jonathan Sandiford, opening the case for the Crown, told the jury: “These defendants were involved in a wholesale market for the supply of controlled drugs.”

He said Islam, Ali and another man in Bradford were dealing in kilograms and half-kilograms of heroin and cocaine. Police saw them meet up with various people on three occasions when significant quantities of drugs and cash were received, the jury was told.

Mr Sandiford said that on June 10, Waldron travelled from Liverpool to meet Islam and Ali in Bradford.

He said police saw an exchange, and when Wald-ron was later stopped on a motorway £28,000 in cash was found in the car.

Mr Sandiford said that in early July Islam and Housen drove to London. He alleged it was to arrange for drugs to be brought to West York-shire by Bullock. The jury heard Bullock and another man then travelled by mini-cab to West Yorkshire.

Mr Sandiford claimed the drug conspirators got “cold feet” and dispersed in different directions. He said police stopped Bullock on the M1 and found £35,840 of cocaine under the car.

On July 18, Mr Sandiford said Ahmed met Ali and Islam in Bradford, watched by surveillance officers.

He said Ahmed was arrested shortly afterwards. In his car was £24,000 of heroin.

The trial continues.

Heroin found stitched into clothes

Wednesday 29th April 2009

Parcels of children’s clothing bound for Bradford had bags of heroin concealed in them, a jury heard.

One package, addressed to M Faisel, Raglan Terrace, was opened by customs officers at Coventry International Hub depot in December 2007, it is alleged.

Bradford Crown Court was told today it contained children’s clothing, including two anoraks. Stitched into one were 56 plastic packages of heroin. The other concealed 76 similar bags of the drug.

On trial are husband and wife Mohammed Faisal, 31, and Patricia Malicka, 30, of Tyne Street, Wapping, Bradford, said to be managing director and administration director of the Yorkshire College Ltd in Manningham.

With them in the dock are Roohul Amin, 35, of Raglan Terrace, listed as college finance director; Faisal’s younger brother, Mohammed Alamgir, 25, also of Tyne Street; and Ali Iftikhar, 39, of Thornbury Crescent, Thornbury. All deny drug smuggling and money laundering.

Prosecutor Peter Moulson told the jury almost 13kg of heroin, with a street value of nearly £650,000, was seized by the authorities.

He alleged the drug was hidden in parcels from Pakistan that were intercepted and replaced with flour and water.

Mr Moulson said other parcels contained heroin hidden in a towel and children’s fur lined jackets.

Suspect in death plot hunted across Europe

Monday 4th May 2009

An international hunt is under way to trace a Bradford man suspected of conspiracy to murder.

Raymond Daniels, 39, has not been seen since walking free from court in March when a judge threw out drugs conspiracy charges against him.

Daniels, of Drighlington, is wanted for questioning about a conspiracy to murder Mohammed Nissar Khan – one of his co-defendants on the drugs allegations.

But he disappeared after an application to dismiss charges of conspiracy to supply heroin, against Daniels, Khan and three other men and allegedly involving £750,000 of the drug, was granted by Judge Roger Scott at Bradford Crown Court on March 6.

The decision was upheld by a High Court judge after a challenge by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Daniels had been in custody awaiting trial in April on the drugs charges, but was released when they were dismissed.

He had been extradited from Marbella in Spain, where he had moved to in 2007, last December to face the drugs charges. Now he is feared to have fled abroad, although detectives also think he could be hiding in the UK.

Two Bradford men, Christopher Fletcher, 46, and his nephew James Fletcher, 25, were arrested and charged in January with conspiring with Daniels, between June 2007 and May 2008 to murder Mohammed Nissar Khan. They are in custody and due to face trial in July.

Daniels, who has links to the travelling community, had not been charged with the murder conspiracy because detectives were awaiting the consent of the Spanish authorities, under extradition laws. That approval came two days after he had been freed from the drugs charges.

Detectives in West Yorkshire Police’s Organised Crime Group are checking up on possible leads following a national appeal on BBC’s Crimewatch programme last week.

Detective Chief Inspector John Hoyle urged anyone with information about Daniels’s whereabouts to come forward.

He said: “Although Raymond Daniels is not a danger to the public in general, if anyone does recognise him they should not approach him but inform the police at once.

“We feel somebody must have assisted him. He has links throughout the country and in Spain and if anyone has information about where he is we are anxious to hear from them.”

Speaking of the drugs allegations, Det Chief Insp Hoyle said: “We presented the evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service, which decided there was sufficient evidence to go before the courts.

“It’s unfortunate that this judgement came before we were able to charge him with conspiracy to murder.”

Burglar trapped by his blood on bat

Friday 22nd May 2009

A drug dealer who hit a householder with a baseball bat was trapped by his DNA when his victim turned the weapon on him.

Nadeem Sheikh, 23, fled the scene with a head wound, leaving behind the bloodstained bat, a court heard.

Today he was starting a four-year jail sentence for aggravated burglary with intention to cause grievous bodily harm.

Prosecutor Giles Bridge said Sheikh was part way through a five-year prison sentence imposed at Bradford Crown Court on September 10, 2007, for conspiracy to supply heroin and crack cocaine. While on bail, he and another man, who had not been traced, committed the aggravated burglary.

Mr Bridge said Sheikh and his accomplice were wearing balaclava masks and gloves when they burst into the kitchen of a house in Birch Lane, West Bowling, Bradford, late at night.

Mr Bailey, 58, was visiting the house on August 20, 2007, and his daughters and two young children were present.

Mr Bridge said Mr Bailey knew Sheikh because his former partner’s daughter was the defendant’s girlfriend.

Sheikh said to Mr Bailey: “You think you’re smart,” and struck him on the head with the bat.

His accomplice then hit Mr Bailey with a rectangular object.

Mr Bailey wrestled the bat from Sheikh and pulled off his balaclava, Bradford Crown Court heard.

As Sheikh fled with his hands over his face, Mr Bailey hit him up to four times on the back of the head with the bat.

Sheikh, then of Grandage Terrace, Manningham, Bradford, was arrested in jail on April 8 last year, the court heard.

He told police: “I know what this is about. It is blood in the house after I got hit on the head.”

Mr Bridge said Mr Bailey and his family were in fear of their lives during the attack.

Mr Bailey was treated at Bradford Royal Infirmary for a lump to his head, a cut needing four stitches and injuries to his hand and knee.

Sheikh’s barrister, Alex Offer, said his client was drug dealing and taking very substantial quantities of cocaine and cannabis but prison had changed him.

He was training to be a bricklayer and anxious to start a new life with his girlfriend.

The judge, Recorder Peter Babb, said of the attack on Mr Bailey: “This must have been a terrifying experience.”

He added that Sheikh never explained why he set about Mr Bailey that night.

Men admit drug charges

Friday 22nd May 2009

Two Bradford men have been warned by a judge they were likely to receive custodial sentences after pleading guilty to drugs offences.

Adheel Ahmed, 18, and Faisal Iftikhar, 20, both of Granville Road, Frizinghall, admitted charges of conspiracy to supply heroin and crack cocaine and possessing criminal property, £245, last October.

At Bradford Crown Court today Judge Jonathan Rose adjourned sentencing but said all options were open. The defendants were given conditional bail.

Heroin weighed and bagged in Everest Avenue, Shipley

Wednesday 27th May 2009

A man who turned his home into a safe house for a drug dealer has been jailed for 18 months.

Wayne Dunwell, 28, bagged up heroin at the address in Everest Avenue, Shipley, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

He had pleaded guilty at Bingley Magistrates’ Court to an offence of being concerned in the supply of heroin on November 8 and was sent to the crown court for sentence.

The court heard he ran up a debt with his dealer and allowed his home to be used for weighing and bagging heroin.

In return, he was given two bags of the drug and £20 was knocked off the debt.

Dunwell’s barrister, Nick Askins, said his client worked for a fencing firm in Bradford. He was on the Drug Intervention Project and had been largely drug-free for a month.

But Judge Jonathan Rose told Dunwell: “You were part and parcel of the drug problem that is rife in this city.”

Man jailed for five years after gun was found

Wednesday 3rd June 2009

A 21-year-old man has been jailed for five years after police found a prohibited handgun in his uncle’s attic.

Mohammed Masood Aslam, of Killinghall Road, Bradford Moor, was arrested following a drugs raid at his uncle’s house in Gladstone Street, Barkerend, Bradford, where officers found class A drugs with an estimated street value of £1,750.

His uncle, Ali Asghar Khan, 53, who suffers from poor health, was sentenced to 16 months for pleading guilty to possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine, found during the raid in October, 2008.

Prosecuting Bashir Ahmed said the gun was recovered in the attic of Khan’s house.

He said: “As a result of that being found and the occupant, Mr Khan, being interviewed, he told the police that his nephew had actually brought that gun to his house.”

He said Aslam denied having ever touched the gun but his DNA was found on the weapon following a forensic examination.

Aslam initially pleaded not guilty but later changed his plea to admit possession of the gun.

Sentencing Aslam, Judge Roger Scott said there were too many guns in West Yorkshire.

He said: “I have certainly passed sentences which are not five years for a case such as this where there has truly been exceptional circumstances.

“In this case you have told a pack of lies – anything you say about this gun is unbelievable.”

Judge Scott said the first time Aslam was interviewed he said he didn’t know anything about it and on the second time, despite the forensic evidence, he again denied any knowledge.

He said at trial he then gave an account on oath of finding the gun under his pillow and picked it up to see what it was.

He said: “Then there was the basis of plea, which I say was fanciful, in which you say you went outside to an outbuilding to urinate, when presumably there was a perfectly good toilet in the house, and you found it concealed in a brick there.”

He said due to the amount of time already served, Khan could be released from prison in the next few days.

Detective Inspector Neil Benstead, of the Bradford District Drugs Team, said: “These two men have been convicted of serious drug and firearm offences.

“The operation resulted in not only a large amount of heroin and crack cocaine being recovered but more importantly removed a handgun from criminal circulation.

“We may never know the true intention for this weapon but clearly it was there to injure or intimidate.

“Firearm discharges in the city are not common and the recovery of this weapon and the sentencing of Mohammed Aslam go some way to prevent crime.”

Anyone with information about drug dealing or firearms should contact Crimestoppers, or Dob In A Dealer, on 0800 555 111.

Trio jailed for 42 years for £650,000 drug smuggling operation

Friday 5th June 2009

The boss of a fake Bradford college, set up to facilitate a half a million pound heroin importation and money laundering plot, is today starting a 16-year jail sentence.

Mohammed Faisal, 32, was led, shouting and struggling, from the dock at Bradford Crown Court after he was convicted yesterday of drug smuggling and money laundering.

The six-week trial had been told that Pakistan-born Faisal, of Tyne Street, Wapping, Bradford, was managing director of Yorkshire College in Manningham Lane, Manningham.

Roohul Amin, 35, of Raglan Terrace, Thornbury, Bradford, who was the college’s financial director, was also jailed for 16 years after he was found guilty.

Prosecutor Peter Moulson told the trial that Yorkshire College Ltd was formed in November 2004 to assist overseas students to gain qualifications and/or college placements in England.

Sentencing yesterday, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Faisal, Amin and another man, Abdul Saboor, created a completely false college.

The judge said: “It was not false in the sense that it offered bona fide courses to some. But it’s real purpose was significantly to facilitate this offence.

“The question of the danger, risk and problem caused by such institutions has been exposed by our journalists.”

A third man, Ali Iftikhar, 39, of Thornbury Crescent, Thornbury, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment after he was convicted of money laundering but cleared of the drugs conspiracy.

Faisal’s brother, Mohammed Alamgir, 26, of Tyne Street, left the dock in tears after he was found not guilty of both charges.

Faisal’s wife, Patricia Malicka, 30, of Tyne Street, the college’s administration director, denied both charges and was found not guilty, on the directions of the judge, during the trial.

Prosecutor Mr Moulson had told the jury some of the people at the college were concerned at the importation of heroin from Pakistan. Amin leased the Manningham Lane premises.

The drug was hidden in parcels of clothing from Pakistan and delivered to prepared addresses in Bradford during the conspiracy, which ran from 2006 to June 2008 when the defendants were arrested.

The authorities seized nearly 13kgs of heroin, with a street value of nearly £650,000.

AA Travel, in Leeds Road, Bradford, run by Iftikhar and Amin, was responsible for sending international money transfers. More than £1m passed through the hands of the company which could not be reconciled to accounting records.

Judge Durham Hall said: “This was a determined and well-planned international conspiracy.”

He said it was beyond imagination that Amin, an “apparently religious man”, should not only involve himself in this wicked and godless deed, but should also dare to try and hide behind the life-threatening illness suffered by his little girl.”