SHOP DRUG BARONS URGES JUDGE

A senior Bradford judge has made a personal plea to addicts to help
the authorities win the war on drugs by shopping' the Mr Big dealers
and importers.

Judge Alastair McCallum said many communities were still being
blighted by drugs - five years after he claimed ?1 million of heroin
was being sold in Manningham Lane every day.

In an exclusive interview with the Telegraph & Argus, Judge McCallum
praised the "fantastic" work of the Bradford District Drugs Team but
said the problem could be dealt with even more effectively if drug
users revealed who the major suppliers are so they can be taken off
the streets and locked up.

In a court case at Bradford Crown Court earlier this month Judge
McCallum, who has been a judge on the North Eastern Circuit for 16
years, said Bradford was being reduced to a city "riddled with drugs."

Sentencing two Bradford street dealers to a total of seven years
imprisonment he urged everyone in the area to stand up against drug
dealers getting rich by "selling poison to young people in our community."

The judge told the T&A that the situation had not changed from five
years ago. "It is so serious now that a lot of ordinary families, who
would never think their children would get involved with drugs, would
be horrified to hear their children are being given this stuff for
free. That is how these people operate, giving drugs for free the
first time to lure them in."

advertisementHe pleaded with drug users to reveal the identities of
their suppliers. "Once you accept that there is absolutely no benefit
to ingesting poison, and the only person benefiting is the importer
who is making his profit simply by killing you and your mates slowly,
if you were sure your name would never be revealed, why not help all
your community - which means your friends - by telling the drugs squad
who they are.

"If they are caught, the judges can imprison them for life. It would
only take half a dozen such sentences to clear out Bradford."

Judge McCallum urged people not to use drugs, or they would lose their
health and their liberty. He said acting as a drugs courier to support
their habit would lead to two years imprisonment on a guilty plea
while jail sentences would start at five years for selling drugs
commercially.

He said those who distributed drugs believed importers would never be
caught, but they had the power to punish them.

The judge added: "The major problem was that drug dealers and
importers had more resources than the people chasing them. Our drugs
squad bobbies are fantastic. They have to live among these sort of
folk day in, day out, and have to comply with onerous rules and
regulations.

"A lot of drugs cases go to court, but by no means all dealers are
arrested."

He said judges had to keep within sentencing guidelines unless there
was good reason to step outside them. But he said: "A fantastic weapon
in the armoury of the judiciary against the bigger drug dealers is to
create a degree of uncertainty as to what the sentence is likely to
be.

"There are special reasons why these defendants, having been caught at
huge expense to the public purse, ought to be given big sentences. If
there was some way of persuading people to let the drugs squad know
who is selling to them the judges could impose prison sentences on
those who need them."

Judge McCallum said the emergence of skunk cannabis, which could be
100 times stronger than the ordinary drug, was a major problem.

He said: "A lot of people still believe cannabis is a drug that is not
going to cause any harm. But if you talk to any psychiatrist in a
mental health institution they will tell you that paranoia can be
brought on. If you take anything which is much stronger than what you
are used to you are going to be in bother."