A PASSENGER who took a frightened taxi driver on a ten-mile ride was jailed indefinitely for the protection of the public yesterday.

Drug addict John Miller, 27, threatened cabbie Ian Smith with a martial arts-style double bayonet while demanding to be taken from his Cramlington home to Newcastle city centre to pick up some "gear" from a cellar raid.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how, during the journey, Mr Smith, 37, had the point of one of the 12-inch blades directed towards his ribs.

He managed to con Miller into thinking he was calling a pal who could take the stolen property off his hands.

But prosecutor Julian Smith told the court how the brave father-of-two had actually dialled 999 on his mobile and was talking to a police operator.

The court heard how police immediately responded to the driver's plight and the cab was being tailed by squad cars, with the Northumbria force helicopter hovering overhead.

When the car came to a halt near Cowgate, Newcastle, officers swooped and arrested Miller and the lethal weapon, which both the sentencing judge and the officer in charge of the case said they had never seen anything like before, was seized.

Miller, of Mirlaw Road, Cramlington, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and possession of an off- ensive weapon at an earlier hearing.

Defence barrister Tony Davis said although Miller has a string of previous convictions for dishonesty, he had never been violent in the past.

Mr Davis said; "The reality appears to be he had taken leave of his senses for a short time."

Judge David Hodson jailed Miller indefinitely for the protection of the public and ordered he must serve at least two-and-a-half years.

The judge told him: "Mr Smith was doing nothing more than providing a public service, a service in which he is entitled to be protected."