Award-winning journalist Mobeen Azhar moves back to his hometown of Huddersfield to cover the death of Mohammed Yassar Yaqub but realises that there is a much bigger story in town.
Credits
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer and Sound Engineer: Pete Sale
Head of Production: Stephanie Edwards
Additional Production: Tom Hinckley
Theme Music: Nainita Desai
Executive Producer for Forest: Jeremy Lee
Commissioning Assistant Producer: Emmanuella Kwenortey
Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins
Commissioning Editor: Jason Phipps
Hometown is a Forest production for BBC Sounds
After publishing a story about drugs and violence in his hometown, journalist Mobeen Azhar returns to Huddersfield to face his critics but threats on his life mean that he has to beat a temporary retreat. Meanwhile, another tragic killing leads Mobeen to examine police tactics being used to deal with this new threat of extreme violence that’s spilling out onto the streets.
22 Jun 2020
5: The Shame
Mobeen tries to find answers to the hardest question of them all. Is the heroin trade in West Yorkshire the best kept secret or is his community simply turning a blind eye to what’s happening in its midst? With access to the inner workings of the drugs trade, Mobeen comes face to face with the scale of the business and the lengths people go to keep it hidden. Meanwhile, a life sentence for a notorious gangster sheds new light on the night Yassar died and makes the need to act against the drug trade more urgent than ever.
22 Jun 2020
4: The Verdict
As the trial linked to Yassar Yaqub’s shooting comes to a close, new revelations emerge about who he really was and the verdict sends shockwaves through West Yorkshire. Meanwhile, Mobeen joins the dots between the violence on the streets of Huddersfield and the international heroin trade linking West Yorkshire and Pakistan.
22 Jun 2020
3: The Grass
As the trial linked to Yassar Yaqub’s shooting continues, a friend unexpectedly turns on him in court. Meanwhile Mobeen’s investigation continues as he discovers that local teenagers are being groomed into dealing and he’s forced to confront the truth about who is running the drugs trade in his hometown.
22 Jun 2020
2: The Father
Journalist Mobeen Azhar investigates the rumours surrounding Yassar Yaqub but is his father trying to manipulate what he writes? Meanwhile a trial linked to the night Yassar died starts twenty miles down the road in Leeds Crown Court. With violence on the streets of Huddersfield escalating, Mobeen explores the aftermath of this apparently drug-related crime and uncovers its impact on innocent locals.
22 Jun 2020
1: The Shooting
Award-winning journalist Mobeen Azhar moves back to his hometown of Huddersfield to cover the death of Mohammed Yassar Yaqub. Described in court as a 28 year old office clerk, Yassar Yaqub was shot dead by police on an M62 slip road on a cold and wet January evening in 2017. Celebrated by his family as a loving son and beloved father, his death lead to protests on the streets of West Yorkshire and in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement a ‘Justice 4 Yassar’ campaign was born. But with rumours of drug empires, money laundering and high performance cars, just days into his reporting of the case, Mobeen realises that there is a much bigger story in town. With violence on the streets and a town that is terrified to talk, Mobeen attempts to find out where the truth really lies in a journey that forces him to face some ugly truths about his community and hometown.
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