A judge has handed out an 11-year jail sentence to a 33-year-old man who was caught with heroin and cocaine worth £180,000 on the streets.

Judge Alistair McCallum told Ghulam Hassan Ansari that long sentences were the only tool the courts had to try to stop youngsters being "contaminated" by the Class A drugs.

Ansari, who claimed to have been visiting the UK on business trips for his family's Pakistan-based fruit and vegetable company, was arrested in May last year after a police surveillance operation.

Bradford Crown Court heard that when drugs squad officers swooped Ansari was caught holding a carrier bag containing three packages of heroin weighing a total of 1.5 kilos and nine ounces of cocaine.

The court heard that officers had been keeping watch on an address in Marlborough Road, Manningham, where Ansari claimed to be staying and when they searched the flat and a Toyota Corolla car parked outside they recovered parts from a "drugs press".

Ansari, who had denied two charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply, was found guilty by a majority after the jury spent almost seven hours considering the evidence.

His barrister Abdul Iqbal told the judge that there was no evidence of Ansari living an extravagant lifestyle and he also suggested that his trips to this country had initially been part of a "lawful enterprise".

But Judge McCallum res-ponded: "I have to say, Mr Iqbal, I don't believe that for a minute."

As Judge McCallum passed sentence on him, Ansari stood with his head bowed clutching a copy of the Koran and listening to his comments being translated by an interpreter.

"If the police had not actually caught you the likelihood is that at least 18,000 additional crimes would have been committed as each of these wraps were passed on to other people," he noted.

"It's rare that the courts are able to deal with somebody who is sufficiently high up the chain of the distribution of these drugs to be entrusted with carrying such a large amount of them.

"I cannot give you any credit at all for any contrition. You have pleaded not guilty in the face of what I consider to be overwhelming evidence.

"Bradford is a city that is absolutely inundated with drugs and the only tool that we have to try to prevent our youngsters from being contaminated with them is to pass very long sentences in the hope that that will frighten people away from here so they can peddle these awful drugs in other countries.

"The minimum sentence which I think is appropriate for the amount that you were carrying and for the damage you could have inflicted on our youngsters is one of 11 years imprisonment.''