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STRATHROY, Ont. – The whole drive down Park Street, cab driver Terry Duffield says, he saw no police officers.

No officer tried to stop him heading to the home of suspected terrorist Aaron Driver, seen on a video threatening to kill Canadians that very day, Duffield said.

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For the five minutes he sat in the driveway waiting for Driver, no officer stepped out to signal him or warn him.

As Driver walked out of the house, across the front of the cab and down its passenger side to the back seat, no police officer took a shot or apparently shouted at the man to stop.

Only when he started backing out the driveway did police swoop in, Duffield said.

“As I leaned over to grab the cigarettes, Boom!, there goes the bomb,” Duffield said.

“If I hadn’t leaned over to grab that pack of cigarettes, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you today. It was that seat and those cigarettes that saved my ass, no cop.”

Wednesday, a week after the explosion in the cab and a terrorism scare that caused little physical damage but rattled Canadians, a shaken Duffield, 47, gave The London Free Press the first detailed account of the role he unwillingly played in the dramatics.