A high performance car dealer in Bradford has been jailed for 25 years for plotting to flood the district with 130kg of heroin with a street value of £7 million.

Father-of-four Khalid Malik lived the high life while selfishly ignoring the tragedy and misery the drug brings to society, a judge told him.

Malik, 34, of Ridge Close, Tranmere Park, Guiseley, was sentenced with three London men for conspiracy to supply heroin.

They stood in the dock at Leeds Crown Court to receive prison sentences totalling 86 years.

Malik, who ran Unique Car Care in Gibson Street, Bradford, was unanimously convicted by a jury on Monday after a five-week trial.

Aras Karkuki, 34, was jailed for 23 years after the jury convicted him of the same offence.

Their associates Khalid Durrani, 37, and Farhad Ibrahim, 43, who pleaded guilty before the trial started were locked up for 18 years and 20 years.

Judge Stephen Ashurst told all four men: "Heroin dealers are selfish, unscrupulous and indifferent to the effect of their crime on others."

The judge branded Malik as the head of the Bradford end of the conspiracy and said he had used his car trading business to hide his considerable involvement in heroin trafficking.

He said Malik's "considerable wealth both here and abroad" would be investigated before a confiscation hearing was listed at the court in May next year.

The court heard that in 1998 Malik was jailed for five years for four offences of supplying or offering to supply heroin. He was caught after trying to sell £34,000 of the drug to an undercover police officer.

Judge Ashurst said Malik had not learned from this sentence.

"With contempt for the courts and utter disregard for your wife and family you decided to move up to the big time. It was a big mistake, Mr Malik," the judge said.

Durrani had previous jail sentences totalling six-and-a-half and three-and-a-half years for trafficking in heroin.

He was released from jail in December last year after serving a sentence for the crime only to team up with Malik and his fellow conspirators.

He already knew Malik and he used a flat in Apperley Court, Bradford, that was home to Malik's mistress, Maria Calpina.

"You chose to run an enormous risk despite your past experience," the judge told Durrani.

Ibrahim and Karkuki were Kurdish refugees who had made new lives in London.

Both were present on May 12 this year when the heroin consignment was handed over at Northolt in London for transport to the east of the capital.

The haul was seized by the National Crime Squad from a house in Leytonstone.

That same day Malik was arrested at his Bradford luxury car business in front of 20 customers and staff. In a strong room at the premises officers found £73,000 in bank notes.

The judge ordered that body armour and sophisticated anti-surveillance equipment found in the Apperley Court flat be confiscated.

During the trial the jury heard that Malik's upmarket lifestyle included a black Lamborghini, a £450,000 home and an £8,000 Rolex watch. He had invested in land and property in Yorkshire and put down a deposit on a luxury apartment in Dubai.

The judge told Malik and his co-conspirators: "Heroin is a major problem in this area but the problem is not unique to West Yorkshire, it is national and judges experience day-in and day-out the impact it has on local communities."

Judge Ashurst described heroin as "corrosive" and said it led to violent and acquisitive crime to feed the habit.

He had lost count of the number of personal tragedies he had heard in the courts that were connected to the use of heroin.

Although the courts did their best to help heroin addicts a wholly different consideration applied to dealers.

The judge said that it was thanks to a joint operation by the National Crime Squad and Customs officers that an enormous quantity of pure heroin was stopped from finding its way on to the streets of West Yorkshire.

"The public has been very well served," he said.

Malik and his co-accused were arrested after months of close surveillance by the National Crime Squad in West Yorkshire and London. Cameras were trained on Malik's home and garage and on meetings between the conspirators in restaurants in Bradford and Guiseley.

After he was convicted police said Malik had extensive links across Europe, Pakistan and Turkey and ran a well-established criminal enterprise.

The drugs would usually arrive in London to be collected and distributed across the north of England, including Bradford and Leeds.

After the case Detective Chief Inspector Lee Kirkby, of the National Crime Squad, said: "Malik's conviction, and the dismantling of his established drugs network, is a significant success in our ongoing attack on organised crime.

"These men, like their drugs, have now been taken off the streets where they can do no further harm."