A BRADFORD drugs trafficker serving a nine-year prison sentence has been made the subject of a Serious Crime Prevention Order to curtail his movements when he is released from jail.

Ashiq Hussain, 50, was one of four men locked up for a total of 25 years at Bradford Crown Court in October last year for their roles in the distribution of heroin in the North of England and Scotland.

Hussain, then of Bingley Road, Bradford, pleaded guilty to drugs trafficking as part of a plot to supply heroin with an estimated street value of more than £250,000 to Newcastle and cannabis to Dundee.

Today, Judge Jonathan Rose made a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO) in relation to Hussain which will run for five years after his release from custody.

A SCPO is a civil order aimed at preventing and disrupting serious and organised crime.

Hussain and his fellow drugs traffickers were netted after a major investigation by West Yorkshire Police’s Programme Precision Team into an organised crime gang transporting drugs from Bradford to other parts of the United Kingdom.

Judge Rose, sitting at Bradford Crown Court, ruled that the order would prevent Hussain from associating with his friend and co-defendant Sheraz Ali and monitor some of his travel arrangements.

Hussain’s barrister, Balbir Singh, pointed to the fact that he would be on licence on his release and so under eye of the probation service but Judge Rose thought the travel re-striction necessary.

During the sentencing hearing, the court heard that one of Hussain’s Bradford co-accused drove to Scotland with 15 kilos of cannabis on November 27, 2019, which had been loaded into the boot of a car at Hussain’s address.

The driver was stopped just outside Dundee by West Yorkshire Police and Police Scotland officers and the drugs were seized.

In April, 2020, Hussain and an accomplice arranged for a quantity of compressed heroin to be hidden in the door panel of a car and for a driver to attend from the North East to take it up there on a recovery truck. The truck pulled over in Bradford and Hussain was later arrested.

A total of 6.5 kilos of compressed heroin was found in the door panel of the car. Hussain was forensically linked to the drugs and a hydraulic press was discovered at his address.

He was sentenced to a total of nine years and four months imprisonment.