A criminal gang, who set up a cannabis factory and planned to distribute £100,000 of drugs across the north, have been given jail sentences totalling more than 25 years.

Terence Wilcock, said by the judge to be the organiser and decision maker in the cannabis conspiracy, looked stunned as he was sentenced to ten years behind bars yesterday.

Another Bradford man involved in the conspiracy, Richard (Dickie) Daniels, was sentenced to two years and eight months imprisonment, to run concurrently with a ten-year jail term he is already serving for conspiring to supply cocaine.

Leeds Crown Court heard a drugs factory was set up at business premises in the West Midlands in a “professional criminal enterprise.”

When police raided it they found 1,000 cannabis plants. Wilcock, described by the prosecution as a “professional criminal,” was a principal organiser in the plan to distribute the cannabis.

But police were keeping the conspirators under surveillance and courier Neil Dempsey was intercepted with the drugs consignment as it was being driven north for distribution.

Wilcock, 47, of Westgate Hill Street, Tong, Bradford, was convicted, after a seven-week trial last year, of conspiracy to produce and conspiracy to supply cannabis. Judge Jennifer Kershaw QC told him: “I am satisfied you were an organiser. You were someone crucially involved, a decision maker.”

After sentencing, Detective Inspector John Hoyle, of West Yorkshire Police’s Organised Crime Unit, said a significant group had been convicted and the sentences reflected their criminality.

He said: “These convictions have seen an organised crime group dismantled from top to bottom. Terence Wilcock was the conduit between West Yorkshire and the West Midlands. He ran it from Bradford and was the central point between the two.

“It is pleasing to see the courts giving these sort of sentences to people who are involved in organised crime. It sends a message out to others contemplating such criminal activity and hopefully will act as a deterrent by stopping people getting involved.”

Prosecutor Richard Wright told the court that Daniels, 39, of Beechwood Road, Wibsey, and another man, 26-year-old Lee Waldron, had pleaded guilty to the conspiracy to supply cannabis, which involved transporting 26 kilos of the drug, worth £100,000 to the north to be distributed for commercial profit.

Both men were jailed for two years and eight months.

The judge said that Chananjit Mahal, 61, of Walsall, West Midlands, found guilty of conspiracy to produce cannabis, knew for at least a month that his premises were being set up as a cannabis factory and was a daily supervisor. She jailed him for six years.

David Romani, 47, of Beacon Brow, Buttershaw, Bradford, who was also convicted of conspiracy to produce cannabis, had a short-lived but important involvement providing technical know-how for the setting up of production. He was jailed for two years. Courier Dempsey, of Cumbria, had been jailed previously for two and a half years after admitting his involvement.

Nicholas Wells, for Wilcock, who had 14 previous convictions mostly for dishonesty, said the amounts of cannabis involved were not massive and the West Midlands factory was “fledgling.”

He said there was no evidence that Wilcock had involvement in any other cannabis factories and he had no previous drugs convictions.

Lee Lupton, 47, of Jarrom Close, Cutler Heights, Bradford, who had been found guilty of conspiracy to supply, will be sentenced on Friday.