Eight years for 'insider' who staged £20,000 Halal poultry robbery

The gang stopped a meat delivery van and robbed its occupants at gunpoint after Nassar Khan, who was in the van with his colleagues, tipped them off by phone.

Khan, 31, had supplied information to his cohorts, who then used a flashing blue light to pull over the van to commit the robbery.

Recorder Carl Gumsley said it was a 'nasty, unpleasant and callous' robbery in which the victims had a gun pointed at them, were punched, threatened, tied up and the driver dumped out of a getaway car.

Recorder Gumsley said: "One can only imagine the fear and terror that all three men were feeling."

Prosecutor Patrick Palmer told Bradford Crown Court on Thursday that, on November 17 last year, HGV driver Andrew Ward had been delivering halal meat in Manchester for Bradford-based Yorkshire Poultry with a nephew of the owners, Mohammed Hussain, and Abdul Khaliq.

Khan, of Bradford, was helping with deliveries. He had been constantly using his phone and used a ruse to stop the lorry at an Asda store

where he got out - almost immediately, a Vauxhall car pulled up with a flashing light in the rear window.

Unsuspecting Mr Ward, thinking it was an unmarked police car, followed it to the loading bay.

Then, the driver was told to get in the car, where a masked man

pointed a pistol at him.

The gunman then got in the lorry cab and punched Mr Hussain and pointed the gun at him.

Mr Khaliq was punched, had the gun pointed at him and was forced to open the safe and cash and cheques were stolen.

Mr Ward was driven away in the car and told: "We know where you live. We'll put a bullet in you if you go to the police," before dumping him.

Khan was later traced to Luton, Beds., but denied being involved, the identity of the other three robbers remains unknown.