Jailed: County Lines drug dealer caught selling ‘high-grade skunk’

More than £2,000 in cash was seized from Haseeb Rathore who had been spotted selling high grade cannabis.

Mr Simon Phillips, prosecuting, said the drug dealing was reported to West Mercia Police.

Officers tracked the defendant to Barker Street Car Park where he was arrested on October 5 last year..

Rathore, 34, admitted one offence of possession of cannabis with intent to supply and possession of criminal property.

Mr Philips said drugs plus cash totalling £2,337.38 was found in his car and on his person.

Sentencing him, Judge Peter Barrie told him: “You were observed by police in a car in Shrewsbury clearly engaged in selling drugs to customers.

“What the officer found in your car and on your person clearly showed you being employed in the trading of high grade skunk.”

Judge Barrie said Rathore had been jailed for 28 months in 2016 at Manchester Crown Court for dealing cocaine and MDMA.

He was still on licence for that matter when he turned up dealing in Shrewsbury dealing cannabis.

Serious

Judge Barrie told Rathore that he had listened carefully to his mitigation, but believed he had played a significant role and, under the sentencing guidelines, he would be sending him back to prison.

“Your previous case is a serious aggravating factor,” he said. “The shortest sentence that you would have received had you been tried by a jury would have been 18 months.

“I give you credit for your guilty plea. The sentence I give you is 14 months. You must serve half before being released on licence.”

The charge of possession of criminal property was ordered to lie on file.

The term will be minus 92 days from 184 days Rathore, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, has spent on electronically tagged curfew.

Mr Adam Watkins, defending, said his client had been smoking the drug since his school days. He added that he could provide no basis of plea as he was caught street dealing. He said Rathore’s mother was dead and his father was seriously ill.