A FORMER restaurant owner is behind bars for major drug dealing charges.

Judge Rodney Jameson QC promised Syed Juhel Miah he will receive a "significant" prison sentence for running a business selling cocaine, cannabis and Ecstasy.

York Crown Court heard police caught him red-handed with drugs in his Toyota on two occasions 12 months apart and found more drugs in another, hired Toyota. Together the drugs were worth more than £18,000. Miah also had hundreds of pounds of cash on him.

Roy Ernest Colsell, 64, who described Miah as his only friend during their joint trial and who ran his drug errands, will be sentenced alongside him.

The jury heard Colsell has an IQ of 75 and is highly suggestible and likely to obey people he sees as being in authority.

He lives in an annexe of Miah's house in Tennant Road, Acomb.

Opening the prosecution, Reginald Bosomworth said of the drug dealing: "It was Syed Miah's business. He was in charge. But Roy Colsell was his good and faithful servant. He may not be the brightest of individuals, but the Crown says he knew about the drugs."

The judge released Colsell on bail saying that although people with his convictions were normally sent to jail, his was not a normal case and he wanted reports on him before sentencing him.

Both men will learn their fate on November 9.

The jury convicted Miah of seven charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply them and Colsell of six similar charges. Both men had denied all charges, claiming they knew nothing of the drugs.

Following the verdicts, The Press can reveal that Miah's restaurant, which has since closed, was prosecuted by City of York for food hygiene cases and selling canned beer as draught beer and cheaper gin as Gordon's Gin.

The jury took just over an hour to convict both men at the end of the four-day trial.