A man caught up in a £50,000 cocaine deal has failed to win a cut in his five-year jail term.

Tariq Mahmood Lal, 41, was jailed by Preston Crown Court in April after admitting involvement in the supply of 500 grammes of the drug.

Lal, of Mossgate, Blackburn, was arrested alongside other members of a drugs ring engaged in selling a consignment of cocaine to other conspirators.

His accomplices were tracked by police to a retail park in Manchester where the cocaine was transferred from one car to another vehicle.

Lal’s lawyers said he had no role in the actual transaction, stressing that his only involvement was to make a telephone call on behalf of his accomplices in connection with the deal.

Given his limited role, and the fact that he stood to make no profit, five years was ‘unduly harsh’, it was claimed.

Lal was on the fringes of the gang and only became involved ‘on the day of the offence’, the court heard.

But Mr Justice Supperstone, sitting with Lord Justice Elias and Mr Justice Mitting at London's Appeal Court, said the sentencing judge was ‘fully entitled to reach the conclusion he did as to Lal's role’.

Dismissing Lal’s appeal, he concluded: “People who deal in Class A drugs should realise they deal in misery, degradation, and not infrequently death.

“We cannot say that the sentence was either wrong in principle or manifestly excessive.”