A top judge called for defendants to be more open about the supply of class A drugs as he jailed a number of men, arrested in the third phase of a major police operation.

The first five of 35 defendants were appearing at Bradford Crown Court yesterday after the new wave of arrests in Operation Stalebank.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, who was dealing with the ‘drug lines’ cases, where phone numbers are used for drug dealing, said the vast majority of previous defendants had pleaded guilty but they had not been forthcoming about how the drug lines had operated.

Judge Thomas said: “While acknowledging their inevitable guilt, they have not chosen to explain how the drug lines were operated. They have largely made little, if any, comment upon arrest and similarly in mitigation at court have failed to reveal the workings of the supply of class A drugs.

“It would be refreshing if during these next 35 cases there was a greater frankness and openness in the explanations advanced by the defendants.”

Judge Thomas was speaking before sentencing the first defendant, 24-year-old Faraz Khan, of West Park Terrace, Girlington, Bradford, to four-and-a-half years imprisonment.

The judge told Khan, who pleaded guilty to nine counts of supplying class A drugs and two charges of offering to supply drugs: “You are somebody who, with your eyes wide open, has gone right into the supply of class A drugs.”

The court heard how undercover police rang the drugs line phones and meetings were arranged for heroin and cocaine to be handed over from different cars in low money deals.

Khan was involved in dealing for two and a half months and the judge said he had been a very significant player. Also sentenced were Steven Doherty, 33, of Vicarage Road, Shipley, who admitted nine counts of supplying class A drugs and one offence of offering to supply and was jailed for four- and-a-half years; Jonathan Turner, 43, of Killinghall Road, Bradford Moor, who pleaded guilty to one count of supplying class A drugs and was jailed for 27 months; Johnathan Bowes, 20, of Chellow Street, Bankfoot, Bradford, who pleaded guilty to five counts of supplying class A drugs and possession of a class A drug was jailed for three years and four months. Mohammed Saleem, 19, of Dorset Close, Great Horton, who admitted 11 counts of supplying class A drugs, had his case adjourned until January 3.