A drug dealer had crack cocaine and heroin hidden in another's people carrier.

It was not people being carried in Yosif Ahmed’s 2012-plate black Ford Galaxy – only £1,400-worth of hard drugs and £1,300 in cash.

A mobile phone found on the 28-year-old dad linked him to an existing ‘County Line’ drug-dealing network, Oxford Crown Court. However, in a basis of plea Ahmed only admitted holding the drugs line phone for a week.

Judge Nigel Daly was told that Ahmed, who has previous convictions for dealing cannabis and cocaine, had a new baby and recognised his drug dealing meant he would miss his son's important early years while he served out his sentence

“I don’t see how being involved in the supply of class A drugs when you have a partner and five month old baby is necessarily mitigation at all,” the judge said.

“To get involved in the supply of drugs when you are responsible for a young child is not something that goes to your credit.”

He jailed Ahmed for four-and-a-half years.

Earlier, prosecutor Matthew Walsh said police stopped a Ford Galaxy people carrier on Ashhurst Way, Rose Hill, on July 17. Ahmed was the driver and the only occupant of the car.

Police officers began searching the vehicle and noticed part of the plastic trim inside the car was loose.

Behind it, there was ‘effectively a void he was using to conceal packages of drugs’, Mr Walsh told the court.

The search uncovered heroin and crack cocaine with a combined street value of £1,400. Some of the drugs had been packaged into individual wraps for sale on the street.

As well as the drugs, more than £1,330 in cash was found on the dealer person and in the car.

The Ford Galaxy was registered to a property in East Oxford. The occupant of the property had no knowledge of the car or anyone registered to the vehicle.

The defendant claimed not to have a connection with the car, but accepted he was using it to commit the drug dealing offences, Mr Walsh said.

Ahmed, of The Dale, Barton, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possession with intent to supply and being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.

Mitigating, Dana Bilan said her client had come to the UK with his family from his native Iraq in the 1990s, fleeing conflict in the country. He had A-levels in maths and media studies, and had gone on to study at Oxford Brookes before dropping out of his course.

The ‘real punishment’ her client had brought upon himself was the knowledge that he would ‘not be in’ his newborn son’s life until his release from prison.

The Ford Galaxy, the registration of which is LL12 VUX, was ruled forfeit to the police. However, Judge Daly said the vehicle’s true owner would be able to make representations to Thames Valley Police if they wanted to retrieve it.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward