FIVE men have been jailed after a police surveillance operation disrupted a heroin supply chain from Bradford to the North East of England.

Three Bradford men and one from Halifax have been given prison sentences totalling more than a dozen years after a judge said they had all been involved in a "wicked trade" back in 2014.

The Bradford link in the supply chain, 47-year-old father Lee Bourgaise, was locked up for four years and two months after he arranged for two consignments of heroin to be taken to Northumberland where they were going to be passed on to 51-year-old Morpeth man Michael Smith.

Bradford Crown Court heard how Halifax man Aaron Oliver, 26, had driven up to the North East in March 2014 with half-a-kilo of the Class A drug, but he ended up getting into an undercover police car to ask for directions before discarding the package in undergrowth at a nature reserve.

His solicitor advocate Ashok Khullar said the officers described Oliver as being almost "in a state of panic" as he later made unsuccessful attempts to find the heroin package.

When he failed to locate it, the former quarry worker contacted Bourgaise, but the police managed to find the consignment before the two men met up to search of the area again that evening.

Prosecutor John Harrison said the heroin recovered by police would have been worth just over £25,000 on the streets.

In May 2014 Bourgaise, of Sovereign Court, Eccleshill, Bradford, arranged for another heroin package to be taken up to Smith and this time cousins Naheem Zafar, 25, and Shakeel Akhtar, also 25, travelled in a taxi to the North East.

During an exchange on a road near Druridge beach, Smith handed over £8,500, but the taxi carrying the cousins was later stopped by police on the A1.

Zafar, who described himself as a "top salesman for Safestyle UK", claimed the money was his savings and he had travelled north to buy a car.

All five men pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to supply heroin and it emerged in court that Smith had already been sentenced to six years in jail in December last year for an almost identical heroin conspiracy relating to an incident in June 2014.

Judge Peter Benson sentenced Smith to an additional two years in prison for his role in the two further heroin deliveries.

The court heard that Bourgaise had no relevant previous convictions and his barrister Dapinder Singh submitted that the heroin conspiracy was "a very small cell" towards the bottom of the supply chain.

Mr Singh conceded that Bourgaise had played a significant role because of his operational or management function within the supply chain, but he said the conspiracy only covered a very short period of time.

Oliver, of Shirley Grove, Halifax, was jailed for three years for his role after Mr Khullar submitted that he had been performing a limited role under the direction of others.

Mr Khullar said Oliver's involvement had been "ham-fisted" and indicated that he was inexperienced in such offending.

Zafar, of West Street, Bradford, and his cousin Akhtar, of Folkestone Street, Bradford Moor, each received jail terms of 32 months.

"You played your different roles and you Smith obviously played a significant role because together with Bourgaise you were the two people who were arranging these deliveries," said Judge Benson.

"Dealing in heroin is a wicked trade. Everybody knows the devastating effects that heroin addiction has on people's lives not just those addicted, but those around them and indeed the wider public because it often drives them to commit offences.

"Anyone involved at the level that you were involved must expect immediate custodial sentences."