TONY Grant has been in the dock of a crown court several times.

The co-accused in the Amriz Iqbal murder trial was last jailed in September 2016 for 18 months for possessing a prohibited weapon that emitted a noxious gas or liquid.

On that same occasion he was dealt with for possession of ammunition without a certificate.

Six months later, the father-of-three was acquitted of trying to kill a man twice in three months.

He was found not guilty, in March 2017, of two counts of attempted murder and an alternative charge of using a firearm to endanger the lives of others.

It had been alleged at Chester Crown Court that Grant had twice tried to kill Ali Farooq at the home of his former partner, Neelo Khan, in Mosswood Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire.

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He had been charged following two incidents on February 26 and April 4 2016, when bullets were fired into the lounge of a house where Mr Farooq was.

The court heard that traces of Grant’s DNA had been found on a fence at the crime scene following the second investigation.

But Grant insisted he had been checking on a work site in Huddersfield on the night and told jurors he did not know how his DNA could be at the scene.

Grant is today beginning a 17-year prison sentence for murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

His convictions date back to 2003 and the 39-year-old has 12 convictions for 36 offences.

He was first jailed in 2003, for burglary and theft.

Four years later, in April 2007, he was again jailed at Bradford Crown Court for a total of nine years after possessing heroin with intent to supply, and possessing prohibited ammunition.

The court heard that Grant was being watched by officers in November 2006 when he collected a bag from a house in Woodhall Avenue, Thornbury, and drove off in a Volkswagen Golf.

Prosecutor Timothy Capstick said the demolition worker, who was 27 years old at the time, was followed to the Mond Avenue area of Thornbury where police lost sight of him for a short while and when his car was later stopped the holdall was missing.

The area was searched and the bag, containing nearly four kilograms of heroin and the live bullets, was found hidden in a garden in Mond Avenue.

Mr Capstick said the heroin had a street value of £198,650 and the bullets were 9mm cartridges.

He said Grant had previously dabbled in drugs, but it was following his release, in 2005, from his first prison term that he began to take heroin on a regular basis.

His barrister said the drug habit spiralled out of control and Grant was subjected to the temptation and pressure to store the package of heroin and deliver it to the person who hid it in the garden.