A “three strikes burglar” and drug dealer has been jailed for six years and seven months.

Bradford Crown Court heard Zaffar Shafi stuffed 40 wraps of crack cocaine in his mouth when police raided a house where he was.

Prosecutor Michael Smith said officers executed a search warrant at an address in Amberley Court, Leeds Road, Bradford.

Five men were in the premises, including the defendant, who claimed to have a swollen mouth.

But officers recovered almost five grammes of crack, with a street value of £500, from him. Three phones and £800 were also seized from him.

Mr Smith said the money and text messages on one of the phones indicated Shafi was a street drugs dealer.

He told the court that while on bail Shafi burgled a large detached house in Bradford Road, Pudsey, stealing a Renault Megane car and electrical equipment valued at £4,000.

He also attempted to burgle a house in Ederoyd Avenue, Pudsey, and was caught going equipped to steal when he was stopped riding a bike in Woodhall Lane, Pudsey.

Shafi, 45, of Sunnybank Avenue, Thornbury, Bradford, who had two previous convictions for house burglaries, pleaded guilty to possessing class A drugs with intent to supply, burglary, attempted burglary, going equipped and handling.

His barrister, Simon Keeley, said Shafi had been addicted to drugs for 25 years and had wasted his life.

“At the time of the offences his body was ravaged by addiction and he was desperate to get his next fix,” said Mr Keeley.

He said that while in prison Shafi had been on drug recovery and detoxification programmes and was thinking about ways of saving other people from the ruin of drug addiction.

Jailing him, Judge John Potter told Shafi his drug habit was no excuse for invading other people’s homes or peddling drugs.

The judge said: “Drug dealing causes significant harm to our community and you contributed to that by being happy to peddle drugs to others.”