A COURT heard today (Thursday, 15 April) that a Maldon man who dealt Class A drugs for three years was kidnapped and tortured when he wanted to move away from the illicit trade.

The lurid details of the alleged torture were revealed at Chelmsford Crown Court as part of the mitigation in the sentencing hearing of Abdul Hamid, 34, now of HMP Chelmsford and formerly of Sassoon Way, Maldon.

Hamid, who was a director of The Bengal Tiger restaurant in The Square, Heybridge, has pleaded guilty to supplying Class A drugs, namely cocaine, and related charges. The drugs operation was uncovered by police after they began investigating Hamid with regard to money laundering.

The drug dealing took place over a period of three years. There are four other co-defendants in the case facing a range of drugs charges. They also face sentencing tomorrow or on Monday.

These include businesswoman Danielle Stevenson-Roberts, 34, of Church Street, Goldhanger, also for supplying Class A drugs. She was also a director of Sunkissed tanning salon in High Street, Maldon, and of Balti Bhujon restaurant in Mill Road.

Murshed Uddin, 24, of Mundon Road, Maldon, will also be sentenced for the supply of Class A drugs.

During today's court proceedings, which focussed primarily on Hamid as the person managing the drugs operation, Judge Simon Mayo QC attempted to gain realistic estimates of the amounts of cocaine involved and the likely scale of the profits.

This will be looked at in more detail in court tomorrow, but the Judge revealed that case documents refer to a value of £1.5 million. The accuracy of this figure and how much profit was involved was not clear.

Prosecutor Mr Wayner Cleaver told the court that Hamid had used a text messaging system to contact regular purchasers of the drug, sometimes offering a discount to those who were quickest to buy.

As his defence lawyer delivered the mitigation this afternoon, he told the court: "The defendant wanted to move on from his dealing, go to Tenerife and leave it behind him."

However, the defence claimed, after leaving his then restaurant The Bengal Tiger in The Square, Heybridge one evening that he was attacked before he reached his home and bundled into a vehicle by men wearing balaclavas.

The defence continued: "He was told he would be fed to dogs and he was beaten with a metal pole."

The torture of Mr Hamid is alleged to have continued with several fingernails being removed with pliers, threats of rape and castration and the burning of his eyes with a lit aerosol before he was tied to a tree and "left for dead".

The court heard that police were alerted to the attack, but that Hamid was too terrified to allow the investigation to continue.

It was claimed that this has left Hamid suffering mental health issues. In addition, he was a user as well as a dealer and this had led him to use the dealing to help rid himself of debt.

However, Judge Mayo said of the alleged kidnap and torture of Hamid that: "It's not the sort of thing that I'm going to accept merely through submission."

The Judge later added that Hamid had appeared to attempt to mitigate the extent of his guilt and "to seek to shift the blame onto others".

The sentencing hearing will continue tomorrow.