A CAB driver whose car was used for a back seat heroin and crack cocaine deal in Burnt Oak faces 12 months in jail.

Somalian Munye Bakoi, 39, of Old Street, pleaded guilty at Wood Green Crown Court to driving a “fare” to Silkstream Road where the class A drug sale took place.

Bakoi, who relied on a translator to hear his sentence, said he did not immediately realise what was happening as one by one a crowd of people got in and out of his hired Vauxhall Vectra to talk to Dean Chen.

Earlier Chen, of Alverstone Road, Wembley, was jailed for three years and two months for supplying class A drugs.

In a statement read to the court, Bakoi said: "I was not listening. I did not understand what they were saying."

He admitted taking no action to stop the deal once he worked out what was going on.

Michael Stradling, defending, said: "That was the basis for his culpability. He did not assist in any other way.

"He is a man who had no intention to be concerned in the supply of drugs."

Calling the circumstances "exceptional", he added Bakoi felt a duty to stay with his taxi, unaware that this would place him "at real risk of losing his liberty".

Mr Stradling said: "Putting him in custody with sophisticated criminals does nothing to help his life and circumstances."

Nearby police officers stepped in on the evening of November 17, recognising known drug-users in the huddle around the silver car.

They searched the vehicle and found nearly nine grams of crack cocaine and six grams of heroin, packaged into wraps and ready for sale.

Sentencing Bakoi to 12 months imprisonment, Judge Fraser Morrison said: "A message has to go out to potential drug dealers that severe punishments will be upon them.

"Your role was absolutely vital to take Chen and his drugs to his customers.

“If you did not know at the outset what was going on, you must have known straight away when the flurry of customers came to your car."