A BRADFORD fugitive wanted in connection with a massive fraud has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years after being on the run for more than a decade.

Yasar Hussain skipped bail whilst on trial in Hull in 2012.

He fled on the first day of a seven-week trial into money laundering and perverting the course of justice related to a fake energy drink scam that used the famous Duracell name.

Police pledged to find Hussain, formerly of Ashburnham Grove, Manningham, and to bring him to justice.

He is now behind bars after leaving Pakistan, where he has stayed with friends since 2012, and being apprehended in August whilst on a brief trip to Poland. He was extradited yesterday (Oct 9).

His Honour Judge Mark Bury, who presided at Hussain’s trial, said: “The irony is that had he had the courage of his convictions he may have been acquitted at the trial but even if he wasn’t all of this would be in the past now.”

Hussain, now 43, was convicted in his absence of 13 counts of money-laundering and perverting the course of justice, and later sentenced to seven-and-a-half years imprisonment.

The jury at the time heard how Hussain boasted about being the talk of Bradford as an inventor of a Duracell energy drink to rival Red Bull.

The scam involved the setting up of a fraudulent energy drink company – Duracell Energy Drinks Limited, taking orders and offering exclusive regional marketing rights to companies across the globe – despite never having a product to sell.

During a half-hour hearing at Grimsby Crown Court Hussain pleaded guilty to breaching bail conditions on November 8, 2012, for his trial at Hull Crown Court, and for a separate dangerous driving hearing at Leeds Crown Court the same year.

Hussain, who has been in extradition custody since August 7, pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving on July 18, 2009, on the A38 near to its junction with the A610 at Ripley in Derbyshire. A picture on Hussain’s mobile phone showed him behind the wheel of a high-performance Audi driving at 161mph.

Mitigating, Eleanor Durdy said Hussain left the UK for Pakistan as he was “stressed” at the time of the trial process.

She added: “He was frightened, he didn’t think he had done anything wrong, and so he left. He fled to Pakistan where he has been residing with friends for the last 12 years.

“It was only when he went to Poland in the summer of this year for a couple of days sight-seeing [that] he was arrested on August 7. He was in Polish custody until he was extradited yesterday.

“He tells me that he’s very much a different person to what he was 12 years ago. He very much regrets the fact that he took the steps which he did.

“He’s fully aware that there is little he can do in respect of the sentencing that Your Honour will no doubt confirm today.”

Judge Bury confirmed the seven-and-a-half year prison sentence that was handed to Hussain in his absence, plus six months for each of the bail breaches to be served consecutively, making a total of eight-and-a-half years jail time minus 68 days spent on extradition remand.

He said: “At any time in the last 12 years if Mr Hussain was as wracked with guilt as he’s been making out, he could have handed himself in.”

Judge Bury adjourned confiscation enforcement proceedings around the £300,000 benefit that Hussain was ruled to have made from his activities before absconding. He said: “Unsurprisingly not a penny piece has been paid and the period for payment has long gone.

“In fairness to you because you’ve been away, it may be that you have means to satisfy at least in part that [confiscation] order.”

Addressing a retired police officer who was present in court for Hussain’s sentencing, Judge Bury said: “I heard it said that it was, as it were, on your bucket list to see Mr Hussain back in the dock. You have done it now.”