A SERIAL offender with a long history of offending has been locked up after lying to police about who he was after being pulled over for drug driving.

Imran Mohammed Akram, 36, of West Royd, Wilsden, was serving a suspended sentence for dangerous driving when officers pulled him over in the early hours of March 20, this year.

He was stopped in a red Volkswagen Golf and gave false details to police. Officers could smell cannabis and a road-side test returned a positive result.

However, when he was taken to Trafalgar House police station he refused to give a blood sample.

He was charged for failing to provide a sample under the false name, but Akram’s real identity became clear and he was also charged with perverting the course of justice, driving while disqualified and breaching a suspended sentence.

This had been handed down to him for an offence committed on September 30, 2017, where he verbally abused a van driver and passers-by before speeding through roadworks and almost running over a pedestrian.

When the pedestrian - who had to leap to safety - asked what he was doing, he replied: “F**k off you English b*****d.”

On January 13 this year he was again stopped by police in the early hours in Clayton Road, and he was reported for driving while disqualified.

Bradford Crown Court heard Akram has 34 previous convictions for 87 offences, including a long list of driving, dishonesty and drugs offences.

In his mitigation, Laura McBride said: “There is very little I can say on behalf of this defendant.

“He has a troubling record, particularly for driving offences, and did not comply with his curfew.

“He accepts this was down to his own stupidity, and has given full and frank admissions.

“He has three children and lives with his wife, who is currently in Pakistan looking after her mother who has cancer, and his children are with his brother. The family are very disappointed in him and he understands that.”

Sentencing Akram to 26 months in prison, Judge Jonathan Rose said: “You have a wife and children and I have every sympathy for them, for they have a feckless father who cares nothing about them.

“All he cares about is flouting the law for years and years, you do not care about your family.

“You do not care about the law, your driving shows this, and you don’t think it applies to you.

“All I can do for the good people of Bradford is ensure you cannot drive in the future because you will not be at liberty to do so.

“I hope you grow up, because otherwise you will be back in prison and your children will have to keep visiting you, and know they have a father who breaks the law and is in prison.

“These were flagrant and deliberate breaches. There is no point doing rehabilitation if you have no intention of being rehabilitated.”

Akram was also banned from driving for six years and one month.