Getaway driver, 81, jailed after Bognor Regis drugs stabbing

Ian Hemmens was convicted of assisting an offender last month

An 81-year-old man has jailed for nine months for acting as a getaway driver for a man accused of stabbing a rival in a dispute over drugs.

Ian Hemmens picked up Mahamud Sami after the attack in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, on 10 March, a jury heard.

Hemmens, a retired burger van driver from Chichester, was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court.

He had been found guilty of assisting an offender, alleged to be Mahamud Sami, who fled the country to Bahrain.

His co-defendant, Akeem Adebayo, 23, of Colindale, London, was jailed for nine years for wounding with intent and two charges of possessing cocaine and heroin with intent to supply.

They had both been found guilty on 23 September at the end of a six-day trial.

Akeem Adebayo claimed he had only used self defence but was jailed for nine years

Judge Roger Hetherington told Hemmens: "You assisted an offender by driving him away from the scene when you knew he must have been involved in a serious assault, you saw blood on him and you undoubtedly knew that he had been involved in drug dealing.

"But your involvement was considerably more than this one journey, you made several journeys on that day and on the night before, you would have been aware that you were being used as a driver whose age and appearance would have been unlikely to draw attention."

The court had heard Mr Sami and Adebayo chased Dimitrijs Semelis along the seafront at about 17:45 GMT in a "dispute over the supply of drugs" before Mr Sami stabbed him five or six times while Adebayo held him down.

Hemmens claimed he had picked up the two men who he said were hitchhikers "out of boredom".

Mr Sami, a student from Chichester, has evaded arrest.

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