A Bradford dad-of-two who insisted he was set up during a Customs and Excise international drug-smuggling investigation has had his name cleared after a 16-year legal battle.

Sultan Shah, 42, was jailed for ten years in 1994 after he was convicted of conspiracy to import heroin. His bid to appeal his conviction was turned down two years later. He spent more than five years in custody.

The Court of Appeal has now quashed Mr Shah’s conviction.

In a damning judgement, the court said the trial judge had been misled into believing that steps had been taken to trace three vital prosecution witnesses, when no such steps had been taken.

The appeal judges said: “It is not now possible to say with certainty that the misleading of the judge was deliberately engineered by some unidentified person.

“It is sufficient for us to say that what happened was either deliberate or was the result of gross incompetence. Either way, the appellant did not have a fair trial.”

Mr Shah’s conviction followed a controlled-delivery operation by Customs and Excise, targeting heroin trafficking from Pakistan.

Mr Shah, who lives with his wife, sons Humaid, nine, and Junaid, five, and other members of his family, in Undercliffe Lane, Undercliffe, Bradford, had been filmed receiving a bag containing ten kilos of heroin.

He maintained he had been set up and that he thought he had been taking delivery of a homeopathic medicine for the treatment of asthma.

Speaking exclusively to the Telegraph & Argus, Mr Shah said he was now taking legal advice on a claim for compensation.

He said: “I have got justice. It is better late than never, but it has come at a price.

“I am happy at the outcome, but I also feel angry towards Customs and Excise because I was shouting at the top of my voice that I had not done it, but nobody would listen.

“I was locked up for five years, but it was like a lifetime.

“I was held in Strangeways prison in Manchester after my arrest. It was a scary time.

“The first year was really hard. I can still hear the jangle of the keys of the prison officers.”

He had gone to Pakistan to get married in 1992 and returned a year later.

“I had come back to Bradford with my new wife and two months later I am locked up,” he said. “I came out of prison as a criminal with a big stamp on my head saying ‘drug dealer.’ That perception never goes in the local community.

“My family dealt with it. They always believed I was innocent, but at the same time I was the black sheep of the family and there was a question mark. My father couldn’t bring himself to visit me in prison.

“After my release I couldn’t get a job. Everyone said ‘I’m sorry, you’ve got a drugs conviction.’ But a friend gave me the chance to run the workshop at his garage and I’m still there seven years later.

“All I want to do now is carry on with my life as best I can.”

Mr Shah’s case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission because of new evidence and legal argument. It was one of several cases reviewed by the Commission relating to Operation Brandfield, a police probe into historic controlled-delivery operations by Customs and Excise, now called Revenue and Customs.

A Commission spokesman said: “Mr Shah’s case, and other Brandfield cases where convictions have been quashed, are examples of how the safety of criminal convictions can be compromised by prosecutorial abuse and failures of disclosure.

“We hope lessons have been learned and that we will not see any more cases of this kind.”

Mr Shah’s solicitor, Marcus Farrar, of Chivers in Bingley, said the case highlighted that if information from the prosecution was lacking there could be a miscarriage of justice. He said: “Mr Shah’s case follows a long line of similar cases, all involving impropriety on the prosecution’s part. One can only hope such instances are in the past.”