Right up until the moment of his spectacular downfall, Richard "Bingy" Brown carefully maintained his facade of respectability.

As joint manager of the Young Lion Cafe in Manningham's Lumb Lane, Brown portrayed himself as a community leader who counted senior police officers among his closest contacts.

Just moments before jailing the 38-year-old, Judge James Spencer, QC, read letters from a detective superintendent and top police liaison officer praising Brown's "public spirited behaviour", especially during the aftermath of Bradford's riots.

Brown had forged a relationship with the force during its investigation of the murder of Destor Coleman - a Jamaican friend of Brown's who was shot dead outside the Young Lion Cafe in July 2000. Brown is pictured putting up a plaque in tribute to Mr Coleman.

But members of the community he claimed to represent finally exposed Brown's criminal double life. Acting on their information, undercover officers launched an operation which saw him caught handing over £55,000 worth of cocaine on the bustling concourse of Leeds City train station.

And when they raided the cafe he ran with fellow drug dealer Michael "Benji" Benjamin, officers uncovered stashes of crack cocaine, cannabis and an imitation Uzi machine gun.

Even after his arrest, Brown concocted a story that he only passed on the drugs to protect a Jamaican woman who had been forced to smuggle them. His tale did not fool Judge James Spencer, who jailed him for 11 years.

After the case, Detective Sergeant Andy Sullivan, of West Yorkshire Police's anti-Yardie squad, said: "This was a man who portrayed himself as a community leader and felt he had police support through his close association with various officers."

Long before his criminal lifestyle came to light, the Telegraph & Argus questioned Brown over the Young Lion's reputation as a haven for drug dealing.

He shrugged innocently and replied that he could not control what others got up to.

But while he maintained his own innocence to the police and public, Brown was a central player in the city's drug trade.

The cafe was a regular meeting point for a Yardie drugs gang headed by Dennis Samuels, jailed for 12 years in February for importing huge shipments of cocaine.

Det Sgt Sullivan said Brown's long-standing connections with the police and image as an upstanding community servant probably led Brown to think he held some kind of "untouchable" status within the community.

But as officers traced his movements on that train station concourse, he was soon to realise this was not the case.