Judge Stephen Ashurst made some very perceptive comments when he sentenced Bradford drugs dealer Khalid Malik to 25 years' imprisonment at Leeds Crown Court yesterday. He told Malik and his co-conspirators that judges experienced day in and day out the impact that heroin has on local communities.
It was "corrosive", he said, and led to violent and acquisitive crime to feed the habit. And he said he had lost count of the number of personal tragedies he had heard in the courts that were connected to its use.
This clearly is a judge who has his eyes wide open to the impact of drug dealing by people who, he declared, "are selfish, unscrupulous and indifferent to the effect of their crime on others".
He knows, as do very many others to their cost, that dealers encourage people to try the drugs they peddle, sure in the knowledge that they will soon become addicted and be a useful source of income and recruitment for the drugs trade.
Because of their cynicism and greed, some people lose their lives to drugs while many others find themselves serving a life sentence in the twilight world of addiction. Their families are often destroyed by it. The communities in which they live find themselves under siege as the addicts steal to feed their habit.
Malik and others who cause all this mayhem and misery so they can enjoy a lavish lifestyle with expensive cars and watches and luxury homes fully deserve the sentences that Judge Ashurst so commendably passed on them. Let's hope they are forced to serve the maximum time the rules allow.
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