A Blackburn man who was the leader of an organized crime group will serve more time in jail as a result of the Court of Appeal’s referral of his case by the then-Solicitor General Alex Chalk QC MP.
Umar Hamid, 31, was the leader of an organized crime organization that supplied Class A and B drugs in and around Blackburn, Lancashire, for roughly 16 months between 2018 and 2020.
The group operated two separate drug distribution networks, one of which dealt with the distribution of heroin and crack cocaine and the other in the selling of narcotics like cocaine, MDMA, and ketamine.
Hamid was found guilty of conspiring to provide class A and class B narcotics on April 13, 2022.
For his part in leading the gang, he received a 10 years and 10 months term at Preston Crown Court.
Hamid won’t spend any additional time behind bars because the court decided that he would serve this sentence concurrently with a previous 17-year jail term with a 5-year extended license for unrelated offences.
This strategy was opposed by the then-Solicitor General, who thought Hamid’s drug peddling offences merited a longer overall prison term.
In accordance with the Unduly Lenient Sentence system, the sentence was consequently referred to the Court of Appeal.
Hamid will now have to serve an additional 6 years in jail after the Court of Appeal determined on July 13 that his initial sentence was unjustifiably light.
As a result, the Court of Appeal imposed a fresh consecutive sentence of 6 years’ imprisonment.
He will now serve a total of 23 years in prison along with a 5-year extended license.
After the hearing, Edward Timpson CBE MP, who is currently the solicitor general, said:
Such a large-scale distribution of illegal, hazardous narcotics is a severe crime that destroys lives.
I applaud the Court’s decision today to impose a sentence that more accurately reflects the seriousness of Umar Hamid’s criminal offence.