A MAN has been jailed for the part he played in the transportation of £100,000 worth of cocaine.

Mohammed Arshad, 50, is now behind bars for passing the kilo of the high purity drug to Caroline Pearson, who was on her way to Wales with it when drugs officers who had her under surveillance swooped.

Pearson, 48, was driving a black Vauxhall Astra along the A650 Bradford and Shipley Road at 11.20am on September 11 last year when she was stopped by a marked police patrol car.

She had been under observation while collecting the cocaine from Arshad’s address in Cliffe Road, Undercliffe, shortly beforehand.

Arshad pleaded guilty to supplying a kilo of cocaine to Pearson.

Pearson, of Starthe Bank, Heanor, Derbyshire, denied possession of the drug with intent to supply and was convicted by a jury at Bradford Crown Court last month.

She was jailed for six-and-a-half years.

Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Inspector Lee Fletcher, from the Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: “We regularly see the harm that drugs cause both to individual users and to our communities and the associated crime they bring to ordinary people’s lives.

“We hope the significant prison sentence Pearson received today will serve to reassure the community that we do and will continue to target those involved in drugs.

“I also hope it will provide some reassurance to the community and illustrate our ongoing commitment to targeting those who think they can profit from the destructive trade in drugs.”

The court heard Arshad was seen to open the front door of the Astra and put a package on the front seat.

The package contained a kilo of cocaine of 90 per cent purity. If sold in one gram deals, it had a potential street value of £100,000.

Prosecutor Stephen Wood QC said Arshad held the package with a cloth before putting it on the front seat of the car.

The high purity of the drug was said to be an aggravating feature of the offence.

Mitigating, Rodney Ferm said Arshad knew he faced a prison sentence for the first time, but said: “There has been a great deal of good in this man.”

He added: “This is a single occasion, he is not a man accustomed to this.”

Mr Ferm said he’d had a “fall from grace” and had “acted out of character”.

Arshad had learnt his lesson, Mr Ferm said.

In sentencing, Judge Jonathan Rose told Arshad: “You knew full well what you were doing.

“If you lay down with dogs, you know how you get up.

"You chose to involve yourself in this.

“It is because of the high value and high purity of these drugs, the sentence must be as substantial as it is.”

He was jailed for 45 months.