Thought this would be same old, same old, but one or two interesting details
Fenham taxi driver supplied cannabis using his trusted position as a cabbie as coverhttps://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/no ... s-20436157Fashad Mohammad, of Fenham, used his taxi to drop off cannabis deals to customers throughout Newcastle
Image: Newcastle ChronicleA drug dealing taxi driver peddled cannabis using his trusted position as a cabbie as cover.
Fashad Mohammad was working for Blue Line Taxis when he abused his position by supplying to users.
A court heard suspicions were raised when police saw him pick up one "passenger", drive round the block then drop him off where he had started, in Stepney Lane, Newcastle.
Officers approached the buyer and he told them he had just bought a £20 deal.
Mohammad was stopped and in a drop down compartment next to the steering wheel, eight bags of cannabis worth £160 were found and he had £630 in his jacket pocket.
Two mobile phones in the car contained numerous text messages consistent with drugs supply.
Claire Anderson, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court: "Numerous people had contacted him asking if they could purchase drugs and if he could drop them off at different addresses throughout Newcastle."
When police went to his home on Belsay Place, Fenham, they found more than £16,000 of cash in a large safe.
At another property owned by Mohammad, on nearby Dilston Road, four white envelopes were found, each containing £2,000 in cash.
When he was quizzed by police, he claimed the two phones with the incriminating messages had been left in his taxi by customers and said the safe belonged to his brother and the £8,000 cash in envelopes was not his.
However he later pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent to supply, in March 2018.
Miss Anderson said: "He used the business as a cover - it was a sideline to the taxi business.
"He was using the premise of picking customers up, driving them a short distance and dropping them off.
"There were a large number of customers he was dealing to."
Recorder Jamie Hill QC hit out at the delays in bringing the case to court and said he would suspend the sentence as a result.
The judge said: "It's extraordinary. He seems to have been caught red-handed and everything was available in March 2018 then nothing happens for well over two years. I'm puzzled."
Recorder Hill said it was "easy to be cynical" and view the offending on that day as the tip of the iceberg but added that there was no evidence of dealing on other days.
But he added: "Having a taxi licence is a privilege not to be abused."
The judge said had he been dealt with promptly he may have been jailed but due to the delay, together with a positive pre-sentence report, he would suspended the sentence.
Mohammad was given nine months suspended for two years with 150 hours unpaid work.
Joe Hedworth, defending, claimed the offending was limited to the one day that he was caught and prosecutors had no evidence it went beyond that.
Mr Hedworth said: "It was his first day selling drugs and he was caught immediately, that's how good he was at this type of work."
He added: "He was not using the taxi as a cover, he was not driving the taxi that night, he was supplying drugs and it was a form of transport."
Recorder Hill responded to that by saying: "The other way to look at it is if someone has a taxi licence it's a trusted position and it was an abuse of that trusted position to use that vehicle for a different purpose."
Mr Hedworth said that Mohammad has lost his employment as a taxi driver and added: "For no proper reason it's taken the police a significant period of time to prosecute him and he has had it hanging over his head for three years.
"He has turned his life around and works extremely hard for Domino's Pizza, where he works as a delivery driver. There is a glowing reference from them."
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