Dad hid heroin and cocaine in laundry basket

A father-of-two who hid a valuable stash of heroin and cocaine in the laundry basket at his Halifax home has been jailed for six years.

Shahid Khan, 28, was told by a judge that it was an aggravating feature of his case that the “filth” he was looking after was left in a bathroom used by others including his own children.

Police executed a search warrant at Khan’s house in Essex Street in April and discovered a carrier bag containing high-purity compressed blocks of heroin and cocaine along with hundreds of individual deals of the Class A drugs.

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Prosecutor Duncan Ritchie told Bradford Crown Court that the heroin and cocaine seized amounted to just over three kilos and could have been worth more than £130,000 on the streets.

The court heard that Khan’s fingerprints were found some of the drug packaging inside the carrier bag, which also contained almost £9000 in banknotes as well as “dealer bags”, scales and a notebook with names and numbers in it.

In interview married Khan told police that everything in the bag belonged to another person he declined to name.

He said that he had been pressured into looking after the bag for a few days.

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The court heard that Khan had two previous convictions related to drug-dealing offences and Mr Ritchie submitted that the defendant must have been “highly trusted” to have been given the responsibility of looking after such a large amount of drugs and cash.

Judge David Hatton QC, who read letters in mitigation from Khan and his wife, said there was “considerable suspicion” in his mind even though it was accepted that the defendant had been acting as a custodian.

“Suspicion remains in my mind that you had a significant role but suspicion is not enough.

“I’m therefore going to give you the benefit of the doubt, which you are entitled to have, and deal with you on the basis of a lesser role,” the judge told Khan.

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“But it is a lesser role in a very significant operation which certainly falls into category one of the sentencing guidelines.”

Khan had pleaded guilty to possessing heroin and cocaine with intent to supply and a further charge of possessing criminal property in relation to the bundles of banknotes seized during the police raid.

Judge Hatton ordered the confiscation of the criminal cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act legislation.

He told Khan that his jail term would have been nine years but for his guilty pleas which meant the sentence had to be reduced by one third.