Dealer avoids custody despite selling to undercover police in Wakefield

Jason Barazandeh became a target for West Yorkshire Police after they got hold of a known drug line and put in orders, which were then delivered by the defendant.

It was part of an operation to disrupt dealing in the Agbrigg and Belle Vue area of Wakefield, Leeds Crown Court heard. They rang the line on January 23 last year and put in an order for four wraps of crack.

The officer was told to meet the dealer on Doncaster Road, near a pizza shop. But when he got there, he was directed down to the canal on Fall Ings Road, before receiving a third call to return to outside the pizza shop. Barazandeh then appeared and sold him the drugs.

Two days later he put in another order for eight wraps, which again were delivered by the 42-year-old.

Barazandeh, of Aysgarth Drive, Wakefield, was arrested in September. He has previous convictions including drug possession and was given 12 weeks’ jail, suspended for 12 months, in 2022 for a non-dwelling burglary.

He admitted two counts of supplying crack cocaine and one of supplying heroin.

Mitigating, Eleanor Mitten told the court that he had been addicted to drugs “for a large period of his life” and had spent the last year “trying to turn his life around”. He is working with the drug counselling service Turning Point and is on a methadone prescription.

Judge Andrew Stubbs KC opted not to jail him, and instead gave him a two-year jail sentence suspended for two years.