Yahoo News Grooming pair caught hiding drugs in court toilet while they were on trial
Two men on trial for grooming and abusing girls were caught trying to smuggle drugs into prison by hiding them in court toilets during their trial.
Naveed Akhtar, 44, hid a parcel of mini mobile phones and opioid tablets inside a toilet at Bradford Crown Court so that Fahim Iqbal, 28, could collect them and take them to HMP Leeds.
However, their plan was rumbled when a dock officer discovered the package tucked inside a toilet roll dispenser.
Akhtar, who was on bail at the time, asked to go to the toilet during the trial and Iqbal asked to go after him – which resulted in a search being carried out by the suspicious dock officer.
The grooming trial was temporarily halted as police investigated two packages containing cannabis, opioid tablets and miniature mobile phones.
A second package was found under a chair situated in the dock.
Andrew Dallas, defending Iqbal, said it was “widely known” that Iqbal was being transported to court every day and he had been promised cannabis in return for smuggling the drugs to inmates.
Sentencing at Bradford Crown Court, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told the pair they had executed the plan “with remarkable stupidity, and quite possibly some degree of pressure, under the noses of dock officers and myself”.
He added: “How on earth you thought you could get this into [HMP Leeds] I do not know.
Read more from Yahoo News UK:
Leader of Brexit Party quits over anti-Islam tweets
Identity of hunter who shot sleeping lion revealed
Man shot by armed police in Hackney
“It was an irritating, vexing and seriously stupid matter and, as counsel has said, it was doomed to failure.”
The pair previously admitted two counts of drugs offences and a single count relating to their attempt to smuggle mobile phones.
Iqbal, of no fixed address, is serving seven years for aiding and abetting rape and Akhtar, of Newport Place, Bradford, 17 years for rape following a trial in February.
The pair were both sentenced to a further five months in prison for the drugs offence.
