A cab driver has been hailed by police after he saved a woman trafficked into the UK to be prostituted.

Tahir Mehmood, a Coventry-based taxi driver, is in line for a police commendation after saving the victim from being forced into the sex trade.

Police rescued the Romanian woman on February 20 last year after being alerted by Mr Mehmood that the woman was being coerced.

The next day officers raided a brothel in the city to rescue several other suspected sex slaves.

Mr Mehmood had been called by Robert Enescu, 26, who wanted the woman to be ferried to a location across the city. During the ride Mr Mehmood's passenger, a married woman that had arrived in the UK four days previously, broke down and revealed she had been lured to the UK on the false promise of a masseuse job and subsequently forced into illegal sex work.

Mr Mehmood, a married father of two, immediately called the police.

Enescu was later arrested and jailed for nine years in his absence having jumped bail. West Midlands Police is working with forces across the UK and Europol to bring him to justice.

Mr Mehmood said the woman started crying when left alone in his taxi. “I said ‘what's up love? Why are you crying?’ I stopped the taxi and said ‘just tell me what's happened,’” he told Mail Online.