Leeds Crown Court: Dealer caught with heroin in buttocks after being stopped outside Ossett chippy

Qasim Ahmed was a passenger in a silver Volkswagen Golf, which police stopped outside the chippy in Dewsbury Road, Ossett, on March 24, 2021. Both Ahmed and the driver denied having drugs on them and claimed they had driven from Bradford to get fish and chips.

No drugs were found on the defendant, who was 22 at the time of the offence, but three phones were recovered. The pair were taken to the police station for a full search, and officers found 50 wraps of cocaine and 40 wraps of heroin concealed between Ahmed’s buttocks.

The drugs were worth an estimated £900. When Ahmed was interviewed by police, he denied the wraps were his. He was charged with two counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs and eventually admitted the crimes.

Ahmed, of Avenham Way, Bradford, has one previous conviction for dangerous driving in December 2020 - and he was under the conditions of a suspended sentence for that offence when he was caught with the drugs.

Leeds Crown Court heard that Ahmed started dealing drugs to pay off debt, which had accumulated as a result of using cannabis and damaging the hire car he crashed in his previous offence of dangerous driving.

In mitigation, Gerald Hendron said that Ahmed, now 24, was an “honest man” who came from a “good, close-knit family”, and that he had stopped using cannabis. Mr Hendron added that Ahmed cares for his father and suffered with anxiety.

Judge Ray Singh took into consideration the delay in the case coming to court when he passed his sentence, one of three years immediate custody.

He told Ahmed: “Anybody who gets themselves involved in the supply of class A drugs is causing untold misery and suffering to the users. That fuels other crime - that fuels desperation, homelessness, mental health issues.

“And with individuals like you, who profit from that misery, the courts consider that only immediate custodial sentences are appropriate.”