A pharmacy worker, who stole £625,000 of human growth hormone drugs from his employers, has been jailed for more than five years.

Naheem Malik, 26, was convicted last month of theft and fraud from the Lloyd’s Pharmacy in Leeds Road, Bradford, where he was a pharmacy worker.

The role of Malik, of Moorside Lane, Laisterdyke, Bradford, at the chemist was to dispense prescribed medicines for elderly patients in residential homes. He ordered large quantities of the drug Soma-tropin and stole it between 2007 and 2008.

It is believed the drugs went to the bodybuilding black market.

Jailing him for five years yesterday, with a further four months for breaching a previous suspended sentence, Judge John Potter told him he was an inveterate liar.

The judge said there was a sophistication to the offences, which were for financial gain.