A respectable travel agent whose life was destroyed by heroin was today beginning a 20-month prison sentence for selling the drug on Bradford streets.

Ian Radcliffe had lost his job, his wife and his home to the addiction, his barrister Richard Clews told Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

“This is an abject lesson to all listening of the creeping ravages of a heroin addiction and how it can destroy one’s life,” Mr Clews said.

Radcliffe, 35, of Cheltenham Close, Wibsey, pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply.

Police caught Radcliffe in a car in Runswick Terrace, Bankfoot, Bradford, at 11.20pm on February 9 with 29 wraps of heroin and crack cocaine worth more than £400. He was arrested, charged on March 17, and bailed. The next day, officers stopped Radcliffe for speeding and found 13 wraps of the drugs in his pocket.

Mr Clews said Radcliffe funded his addiction legally for as long as he could. When he lost his job, he was forced to sell drugs on the street for his dealer to fund his habit.

“He was in desperate straits. They were not his drugs,” Mr Clews said.

  • Read the full story in Thursday's T&A