A BRADFORD gunman who fired a sawn-off shotgun at a house in Lancashire during a drug feud has been jailed for 23 years.

Kassam Nadeem, 27, of no fixed address but previously of Maple Avenue, Bradford Moor, fired the weapon at a house on Richmond Road, Accrington, in June 2017, injuring an innocent woman.

The victim, Shabir Begum, was injured by flying glass after Nadeem fired at the family home in an attack aimed at her son, Waheed Hussain, who lived at the same address and was said to have owed Nadeem a drug debt.

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Ms Begum was admitted to hospital for three days after the attack, with Judge Heather Lloyd saying the family have been left ‘scared to live in their own home’ ever since.

Prosecutors also said around a month earlier Nadeem had been involved in a similar offence at a house in Beaconsfield Road, Haslingden. A jury found him not guilty of firing the gun in that instance.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Kassam Nadeem. Picture: Lancashire ConstabularyKassam Nadeem. Picture: Lancashire Constabulary

He was given separate eight-year sentences for two counts of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and five years for possession of a firearm, the three sentences to run consecutively.

Two other men - Hasriat Omar Khan, 32, most recently of Moorlands View, Ramsbottom, and Louis Ojapah of Peel Street, Liverpool, were sentenced to nine and seven years respectively for their roles in the incidents.

Khan was sentenced in his absence after going on the run before the trial began. He is still at large.

Three other men suspected to have been involved in the shooting plot were found not guilty.

“Your victims were innocent family members of those with whom you or someone else had dealings. You three have had no concerns about your victims or other entirely innocent people were on the street when the shooting took place.

- Judge Heather Lloyd

Sentencing the three men, Judge Heather Lloyd said: “Illegal weapons on the streets are a great threat to society. When they are used in a drug-related conflict they often can quickly escalate and spiral out of control.

“Your victims were innocent family members of those with whom you or someone else had dealings.

“You three have had no concerns about your victims or other entirely innocent people were on the street when the shooting took place.

“It must be miserable for those having to endure these goings-on as they try to live life as law-abiding citizens. Such illegal weapons on the street are a grave danger to society.”

Sentencing Nadeem , she said: “You were the hired man who travelled from Bradford to East Lancs to use a sawn-off shotgun. In both instances, you either used or had in your possession a genuinely lethal weapon. It was loaded and fired on two separate occasions, four weeks apart in different locations.”