Suspended prison term for cash scam

Repairs to flood-hit road now complete

A CAR salesman has been given a suspended sentence after he allowed cash from a criminal scam to go through his bank account.

Leeds Crown Court heard in November 2013 a woman received a phone call purporting to be from the police telling her someone was using her bank card.

Sohail Khan, prosecuting, told the court yesterday she was advised to protect her money and should transfer it to a safe bank account.

She was given details of an account which turned out to be in the name of Usman.

On November 6 she transferred £7,000 to that Lloyds Bank account and the next day she transferred a further £4,000.

The money did not stay in the account traced to Usman Khalid for very long and almost all the £11,000 was quickly withdrawn in various amounts at casino premises in Bradford and Huddersfield.

Mr Khan REPAIRS to a flood damaged road in Calderdale have now been completed.

Wakefield Road at Salterhebble was badly affected by the flooding that hit the borough on Boxing Day 2015.

The retaining wall of the busy road was washed away in the floods and the riverbank was badly eroded. As the overhead road was at risk, temporary repairs had to take place straight after the floods.

A permanent solution took longer to devise, with significant design work and required 20 weeks of work.

Two other projects in the area, a new footbridge at Shibden Park and repairs to a wall at Robin Wood Mill on Burnley Road, Todmorden, have also been carried out.

Steven Lee, Calderdale Council’s head of highways and transportation, said: “The damage from the Boxing Day floods was so severe, that work is still continuing on infrastructure repair projects across the borough.

“These three projects needed careful planning, especially the Salterhebble scheme, which required major design work.

“Our towns have made an amazing recovery since the floods, and these schemes have been designed to prevent further more serious damage in these locations in the future.” arrested in January 2015 and at the time made no comment to questions put to him.

It was accepted he was not the person who made the call and did not have the bank card for the account at that time concerned.

Gillian Batts, representing Khalid, said he had never been involved in anything similar before and maintained he had not benefited from his actions but had just let the money be passed on.

Khalid, 29 of Brook Street, Thornton Lodge, admitted wpossession of criminal property by receiving the transfer and was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years with 150 hours of unpaid work.

Judge James Spencer QC said: “You have no previous convictions for dishonesty and yet you were involved in this substantial piece of dishonesty when you allowed £11,000 to be transferred into your account.”

He said knowing that was criminal property was “flirting with crime”.

The judge warned him not to continue with that or he would find himself in custody for a long time.