A Killing

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 led 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.

Journalist Mobeen Azhar investigates rumours surrounding Yassar Yaqub, and a trial linked to the night he died starts twenty miles down the road at 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.

As the trial linked to Yassar Yaqub’s shooting comes to a close, new revelations emerge about who he really was. 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.

Mobeen joins the dots between the violence on the streets of Huddersfield and the international heroin trade linking West Yorkshire and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the revelations about Yasser Yaqub keep on coming.

Journalist Mobeen Azhar 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.

As publication of Mobeen's newspaper story gets close, a life sentence for a notorious gangster sheds new light on the night Yasser died and makes the need to act against the drugs trade more urgent than ever.