AN ADDICT caught street-dealing Class A drugs in Bradford four times in the space of a year has been jailed for 40 months.

Bradford Crown Court heard that Shaan Ali’s worsening habit became the “catalyst” for his offending, which stretched back from this April to July last year.

Prosecutor Paul Nicholson said police were monitoring the Manningham area of the city on August 15 last year when they saw Ali, 23, conducting a suspected drugs deal from the front passenger seat of a car.

Officers searched him and found 60 wraps of heroin and 60 of cocaine, with a total estimated street value of £752.

Ali’s phone also contained text messages telling him where to meet people to deliver drugs.

The defendant was on bail on January 26 when officers again stopped a car in which he was a passenger after noticing a strong smell of cannabis.

This time Ali, of Chapel Street, Bradford, was found to have 20 wraps each of the two drugs on his person, worth a combined £268.

Further offences were recorded on April 18 and 24, with Ali again caught dealing drugs from a car.

In the first instance, he was found with 21 wraps of heroin and 51 wraps of cocaine in a Volkswagen Golf stopped on Lumb Lane.

Mr Nicholson said Ali’s offending placed him as playing a “significant role in street dealing.”

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He pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiring to supply Class A drugs and one of the possession of cannabis.

Rebecca Young, defending, said Ali’s addiction “got out of control very quickly as his debts to dealers grew”, stating he made no financial gain out of the dealing aside from repaying the money he owed.

She said he came from an “extremely respectable” family who wanted to take him to a rehabilitation facility in Pakistan.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, told Ali: “You are an addict, no question. Your use of drugs moved from social to being gripped and in due course you were snared by your dealers.

“The sentence is one of 40 months. That is compassionate. Below that I can not, and will not, go.”