Three drug dealers jailed

Mohammed Nashad Farid

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Three men have been jailed as part of an operation to smash a major class A drugs ring in Rochdale.

The men were sentenced at Bolton Crown Court on Wednesday (27 July 2011).

Mohammed Nashad Farid, 25, of Kensington Street, Rochdale, was jailed for nine years nine months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and given two months for assaulting a police officer to run consecutively.

Mohammed Ramzan, 43, of Tweedale Street, Rochdale. was jailed for four years for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and given a further eight months for dangerous driving to run consecutively.

Dean Anthony Lignum, 21,  of Withern, Heywood, was jailed for three years five months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs and sentenced to a further 14 months for possession with intent to supply to run consecutively.

They pleaded guilty to the charges at earlier hearings.

The convictions bring the total number to 31 offenders sentenced as a result of Operation Perryville, an intelligence-led operation targeting those suspected of dealing drugs.

The men were an integral part of a drug-dealing gang.

The jailing of the three is the culmination of approaching three years' work by officers to stop heroin and crack cocaine flooding the streets.

Intelligence from the community was compiled over several months and resulted in a series of raids in May 2009.

Warrants were executed at 30 addresses in the Milkstone and Deeplish areas during the two days, Wednesday 13 May and Thursday 14 May 2009.

Following the operation - which prevented those arrested and convicted from dealing any more drugs - officers received new intelligence that other people connected to the original gang were still dealing drugs.

New inquiries led them to arrest Ramzan, Farid and Lignum. All three were convicted as a result of phone records, surveillance and drugs and drug paraphernalia that was found on them on arrest.

They were arrested in November 2009 and, following a short pursuit which Ramzan's dangerous driving conviction relates to, Farid punched and kicked the officer trying to arrest him.

Farid's attack on the officer was stopped by two members of the public who intervened and Judge Morris commended their actions in helping the plain clothes officer as he sentenced the offenders.

Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Mallen, based at Rochdale CID, said: "We are more than two years on from the original raids but today's result shows that our work does not stop when we knock through doors.

"These criminals carried on regardless of the fact that their associates had been locked up.

"Whether they thought police wouldn't be bothered about their activities because we had stopped the majority of the group or were simply arrogant enough to think we wouldn't find out about them, it was a mistake on their part.

"Greater Manchester Police wants to stop all criminals and officers in Rochdale wanted to stop this community suffering the misery created by drug dealing - it was not merely about the initial result."