POLICE found a stolen rifle in a wardrobe and a £9,000 stash of heroin and crack cocaine under a bed in a raid at a house in Bradford.

Mustafa Mohammed, 22, told the police a handgun was put to his head to force him to store the firearm and drugs at his home in Round Street, West Bowling.

Bradford Crown Court heard that police officers armed with a search warrant under the Firearms Act knocked on the door at 7.35pm on January 21 last year.

Mohammed immediately confessed that there was a gun in his wardrobe and other items in a shoebox under the bed.

Prosecutor John Bull said that officers seized an American bolt action rifle and ammunition stolen in a burglary at a golf club in Doncaster three months previously.

They discovered more than 50 packets of crack cocaine and six packets of heroin in the shoebox, weighing a total of 173.44 grams and with a street value of £9,000.

Mr Bull said a number of mobile phones were also recovered and texts on one of them disclosed that Mohammed had been dealing in cannabis for three months.

He told the police he was phoned at 5am on the day of the search and drug dealers turned up at his home. One put a handgun to his head and he was ordered to store the rifle and drugs.

Mohammed said he was selling cannabis to friends to pay for his own habit.

He pleaded guilty to possession of heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply it, possession of a firearm without a certificate and being concerned in an offer to supply cannabis.

In mitigation, Mohammed’s barrister, John Boumphrey, said the circumstances of the case were very unusual.

His client had mental health problems and was bullied at school.

He was a vulnerable young man with no previous convictions and his highly respectable family had done their very best to keep an eye on him.

“When the police arrived at the door of his house, he told them ‘There’s a gun my wardrobe and there are drugs under my bed’,” Mr Boumphrey said.

Although Mohammed’s fingerprints were on the rifle, there was nothing to suggest he would ever have done anything with it.

Judge Jonathan Rose told Mohammed that his appearance in court had brought great shame to his blameless relatives.

“Without a shadow of doubt you come from a highly respectable, respectful and law-abiding family,” the judge told him.

Although Judge Rose accepted that Mohammed did not intend to use the rifle for illegal purposes, someone else did, with the manifest risk of it causing grave injury and death.

Jailing him for 32 months, he said: "You were providing a safe haven and those who do such a thing must be deterred.”