Dealer who avoided jail caught selling cannabis on Leeds streets three weeks later

Zakib Khan was seen by officers passing a package through the window of his VW car to a Renault which were both parked on Burlington Road in the Beeston area on the evening of October 1 last year.

They then moved in to to arrest driver Khan and search his car, prosecutor Ben Whittingham told Leeds Crown Court. They found around £100 worth of cannabis, separated into four deals in a bucket in the car. He was also given a road-side swipe test which showed he was over the driving limit for cannabis.

During his police interview, the 21-year-old gave a prepared statement denying dealing and that someone put the bucket of drugs in his car.

He later admitted dealing, but tried to put forward a basis that he was simply sharing drugs with friends, a claim he later withdrew. However, he had only received an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years, for dealing in cannabis on September 8, last year.

Khan, of Tempest Road, Beeston, has been held on remand since his arrest and appeared in court via video link from HMP Doncaster. Mitigating, Soheil Khan said: “Sadly, having received his suspended sentence he made some progress, attending four rehabilitation days and completing one day of the unpaid work.

"He has just started his own valeting business, it was not flourishing and fell into this offending. It’s not dissimilar to what he has done before. He has asked me to express his remorse.”

But the judge, Recorder Abdul Iqbal KC, disputed the claim and that Khan’s retracted basis about sharing drugs with friends was “not someone who had shown full remorse”.

He jailed Khan for 26 months in total – activating 16 months of his previous suspended sentence, plus 10 months for the new offence.

He told him: “You were engaged in dealing or trafficking cannabis at street level only a matter of three weeks after the suspended sentence order was imposed. You said you were not trafficking cannabis, merely sharing a quantity socially with friends. It’s plain you played a significant role.”