A judge today described Bradford as the heroin capital of the country.

Judge John Cockroft spoke out as he jailed a drug dealer who bragged about selling the best heroin for eight years.

Mohammed Yaqoob, 28, was the latest in a series of street suppliers caught in a police operation using undercover officers to make test purchases from suspected dealers.

Judge Cockroft noted that even a previous five-year sentence had not deterred Yaqoob from dealing in heroin.

"If it hasn't deterred you it will scarcely have deterred other dealers and potential dealers who are operating so extensively in this city, which might be called the heroin capital of the country,'' he said.

"You must know by now the evil effects of heroin. It turns good people into bad. It turns healthy people into wrecks. It turns people who have jobs into desperate unemployed, people of good character into those who, for their own purposes and to fuel their own habit, become thieves, muggers and burglars.

"It is, in very large measure, responsible for the large problems this city suffers.''

Yaqoob, who had previously served the sentence for heroin supplying, was contacted on a mobile phone by undercover officers and he sold them wraps of heroin on four days last January..

Prosecutor Gerald Hendron described how on the first occasion Yaqoob told the officer that the drug was called China White and added: "It's the best gear you can get."

Yaqoob, who pleaded guilty to five charges of supplying heroin and two of possession of the Class A drug, met the officers on the streets and at Frizinghall railway station to sell them heroin.

Judge Cockroft said he did not accept that Yaqoob, of Athol Road, Heaton, Bradford, was at the bottom end of the supply chain because he got others to drive him to drug deals and had previously been involved in drug dealing in the area.

Yaqoob's barrister, Nicholas Askins, said when he was released from his previous sentence in September 1998 he had hoped to live with his parents and stay out of trouble.

But after a fall-out with his brother, he moved back into a flat of his own and returned to his drug addiction.

"He was unable to finance his addiction legitimately and so unfortunately he resorted to dealing in drugs,'' added Mr Askins.

The judge said those tempted by the high rewards of drug dealing must be discouraged by deterrent sentences.

Yaqoob was jailed for seven years on the latest matters, but given a further year and two days in jail, which was still outstanding from his previous sentence.

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