A STREET dealer caught with drugs twice in the space of four months has been locked up for more than three years.

Mohammed Taj was found with 17 bags of crack cocaine after being spotted by police carrying out a deal from his car in Halifax on September 25, 2020, with another man. He was later arrested at his home.

Four months later, on January 3, 2021, he was arrested again after police in Halifax received a tip-off that a car being driven by Taj was being used for drug dealing.

Police found 11 bags of heroin and 28 bags of crack cocaine plus £307 in cash and a pin-protected mobile phone.

Taj, now 41, of Grosvenor Terrace, Halifax, received a total of three years and six months imprisonment.

Sentencing him at Bradford Crown Court His Honour Judge Colin Burn said: “Whilst you were under investigation [for the earlier offence] you were out and about just three months later once again in possession of suppliable amounts of heroin and cocaine.

“Consecutive sentences are not only appropriate but really inevitable in a case where someone has been arrested for a serious offence and then within four months is doing exactly the same thing again.”

Judge Burn ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs seized, and forfeiture of the cash.