A 48-year-old man whose home acted as a drugs shop for up to 100 heroin users a day was jailed for four years.

Police kept Lawrence Hargreaves' house in Vickerman Street, Halifax, under surveillance between February and April last year and saw many known drug users visiting the premises.

After his arrest Hargreaves, who was himself addicted to heroin, estimated that more than 60 people visited the house daily and on one occasion there had been 100 callers.

Hargreaves admitted dealers were using the house to sell drugs and confessed to getting needles for them.

Bradford Crown Court heard how despite being charged Hargreaves was arrested again in April this year after an undercover police officer visited his new home in the same street and was supplied with £20 wraps of heroin by him on two occasions.

Jailing the father-of-one, Recorder Graham Hyland QC said although he was not the prime mover in supplying drugs his offending was still serious.

Hargreaves, who had no previous convictions for drugs offences, pleaded guilty to two charges of being concerned in the supply of heroin and two of supplying the drug.

He also admitted a separate allegation of handling stolen property from a burglary.

Hargreaves' barrister Mark Monahan stressed that his client had not received any money from the dealers who used his homes, but had been given some heroin for his own use.

He said Hargreaves had been prevailed upon by others more criminally sophisticated than him and they used his premises as a "drugs shop".

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