A father-of-two is beginning a four-year jail sentence after a jury today found him guilty of possessing over £7,000 worth of heroin with intent to supply it to others.
Married 27-year-old Manzoor Akhtar was arrested last year after police officers executing a search warrant at his workplace discovered a plastic bag containing more than 80 grammes of heroin hidden in the spare wheel compartment of a Seat Leon car.
Prosecutor Joanne Shepherd told the jury at the start of Akhtar’s trial that the bag contained three further bags of heroin with purity values ranging from 64% to 71%.
Miss Shepherd said the heroin could have been worth £7,669 on the streets and Akhtar’s fingerprint was found on the outside of one of the smaller bags.
The stash of drugs was discovered at Staybrite Valeting on Miln Road, Birkby, last July and in a prepared statement Akhtar said he had worked at the premises since it opened.
He said he worked as a mechanic and did valeting at the premises and explained that he had been working on the Seat Leon.
Miss Shepherd said Akhtar suggested that he may have touched a bag while he was fixing the car.
Akhtar, of Blackmoorfoot Road, Crosland Moor, denied the charge of possessing the heroin with intent to supply, but the jury at Bradford Crown Court returned their unanimous guilty verdict after less than half an hour of deliberation this morning.
Recorder Sarah Mallett was told that Akhtar’s jail sentence would impact of his family including his mother who was in poor health.
Recorder Mallett said Akhtar was clearly a hard-working man but his previous drug offending, involving mainly cannabis, was an aggravating feature of the case and the current matter was so serious that only a custodial sentence could be justified.
