A Calderdale man has told of his nightmare of mistaken identity.
Takeaway worker Mohammed Naved Bashir was arrested and told there was a warrant for him, driven to cells 175 miles away in Glasgow and hauled before a court.
It was only then that the blunder was spotted.
The father-of-two appeared in court and the lawyer for the correct wanted man said: “That’s not my client’.
Mr Bashir, 35, repeatedly told police they’d got the wrong man after he was stopped by an unmarked police car just after midnight on December 15 while delivering a takeaway pizza.
Police accused him of having the wrong insurance and checked his name on a database.
But it wrongly matched that of a man on the run from Glasgow, accused of fraud.
Mr Bashir, who goes by his middle name Nav, said: “I was just dropping of a pizza in Greetland and was pulled over.
“I was asked to sit in the back of the police car and gave them my details.
“They asked if I had any links to Glasgow and I told them I have relatives there.
“That was when they told me I was wanted on a warrant for fraud.
“I told them ‘You’ve got the wrong person’, but I was arrested and handcuffed and taken to Halifax Police Station.
Nav said he fully cooperated and gave police his fingerprints to check his identity.
His plight got worse in the morning when he told custody officers he had coeliac disease.
“I told them, I can’t eat anything with wheat or barley. They were only giving out sandwiches so I just had water and crisps.
“It was freezing in the cells and they gave me a couple of blankets but I was still cold. My head was all over the place.
“I was worried about my family, and my son was due to be in his first Nativity play and I missed it.
“I wasn’t interviewed, I spent another night in the cells and then I was taken by G4S to Glasgow.
“It was a prison van and it was really claustrophobic.
“When I arrived I was booked in again, and still couldn’t eat anything.
“When I was in the cells I was given papers and it had another man’s name on them and his details but my surname.
“I told the guards again, it wasn’t me but it wasn’t until I was taken into court and the wanted man’s solicitor saw me that he confirmed I wasn’t his client.
“I was bundled out of the dock without even an apology. I was handed my coat and escorted out of the court and left on the street.”
He was alone in Glasgow, 175 miles from his home in Elland.
He said: "I had £6 in my pocket and my mobile was dead when they gave it back to me. Luckily, I have relatives in Glasgow and I was able to contact them and they drove me back home".
His lawyer Simon McKay, of Bradford-based Petherbridge Bassra, said: “In our modern society it is unacceptable that an innocent man should be held in these circumstances.”
A West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman said the force could not comment on the case for legal reasons.
