A SUSPECTED drug dealer caught in a Bradford car park with nearly £50,000 in his BMW has been jailed for a year.

Tabarak Hussain, 35, was detained by officers from the National Crime Agency as they swooped on a car park on Northcote Road on March 17, 2016.

Prosecutor Howard Shaw said that four men had been present at the scene, with one making an escape as police arrived.

Hussain was arrested next to his car, and found to have £1,855 in cash on him, along with three mobile phones.

On searching his vehicle, officers found two bags, which Mr Shaw said contained “just shy of £50,000, £49,880 to be precise”, and five small bags of cannabis.

Hussain’s fingerprints were found on both bags containing the money, and on analysing his phones, police found a “number of conversations linked to drug dealing.”

Mr Shaw told the court: “The Crown say that the £50,000 was probably the proceeds of drug dealing”, adding that Hussain had admitted being concerned in a “money laundering operation.”

He pleaded guilty to a charge of entering into or becoming concerned in an arrangement which he knew or suspected facilitated the acquisition, retention, use, or control of criminal property, and the possession of a class B drug.

Mr Shaw said Hussain, of Summerley Court, Idle, Bradford, had previous convictions for drugs offences, serving a four-year prison sentence in 2011 for the possession of heroin with an intent to supply.

He was given a four-month sentence, suspended for two years, for battery in July 2014, which the court heard he had breached by his latest offending.

Alasdair Campbell, mitigating, said that due to a trial involving two co-defendants, Hussain had been forced to wait a “considerable period of time” to be sentenced.

He said that during that time he had carried on working to provide for his four year-old son and his partner, who was pregnant with their second child.

Mr Campbell argued that the offences could be dealt with by a suspended jail term, as immediate custody would leave Hussain at risk of losing both his rented house and his job.

He also asked that Hussain’s existing suspended sentence not be activated, as he had completed the unpaid work element of the community order.

Judge Neil Davey QC disagreed, stating: “When someone is in breach of a suspended sentence, the law is simple. It must be activated.”

Judge Davey did agree that there were doubts over the extent of Hussain’s involvement in the operation, stating: “There isn’t enough material to make me sure you were playing a leading role in the group.”

Referencing the surveillance sting however, he told Hussain: “They caught you in your car.

“In it was a very large amount of cash and three phones, texts on which revealed communications which were plainly consistent with the drugs trade. You are no stranger to the drugs world.”