7:58am Friday 27th November 2009
A DRUG dealer who went on the run turned his life around while hiding from police, a court heard.
Qadeer Ahmed turned his back on crime, found a job, got married, had a child and made up with his family, who had rejected him.
He then handed himself into police, who had been hunting him for two and a half years.
But yesterday Ahmed was jailed for two years.
Bolton Crown Court was told police raided a house in Holbeck Close, Horwich, in February, 2006, following a tip off.
Ahmed, aged 28, of Crawford Avenue, The Haulgh, was arrested at the property, where 68 grams of heroin and 23 grams of cocaine with a street value of £9,000 were recovered. He pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs in November, 2006, but failed to turn up to be sentenced in April, 2007.
But after changing his ways, on November 3 this year he decided to face up to his punishment, and handed himself in at Bolton Police Station.
His drug habit started in 2001 when he was in a young offenders institute for a robbery. When he was released it spiralled downwards.
Judge Lindsey Kushner QC, sentencing, said if the case came before her in 2007 he would have been jailed for three to four years.
She said: “You have done everything that one would hope a prison sentence would achieve, but to be honest is unlikely to achieve. You have kept out of trouble entirely and surrendered yourself.
“This case is exceptional and I do not want any potential drug users to think that I look at dealing in Class A drugs on a whimsical basis.
“Neither do I want the public to think that I regard it as OK to deal drugs.
“But given the circumstances you are a different man from the one in 2006 and given the fact I do not want to cause you such despair that you will start indulging in drugs again the sentence will be two years.”
Ahmed was given a six-month sentence for breaching the bail act, which will run concurrently.
amanda.smith@ theboltonnews.co.uk
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