A barman has told of his ordeal after a chef returned to hold up the West Hampstead bar where he worked at gunpoint in a bid to steal �11,000.

Brazilian chef Rodrigo Dogado, 31, teamed up with Bruno Olivera, 28, to rob The Gallery bar, in Broadhurst Gardens, just before midnight on November 27 last year.

The pair armed themselves with two guns before storming the bar and demanding the contents of the safe.

Despite covering their faces, bar manager Ian Black and barman Asllan Isellome recognised the voice of the chef, who had worked at the pub before leaving over a dispute about holiday pay.

The 23-year-old barman, who moved to London during the war in his native Kosovo, was forced to the floor while a gun was tapped to his head.

He said: “At that point I pretty much thought that I was dead. I comforted myself thinking that at least it’s going to be quick because one of the guns was pointed at the top of my head. I still shudder saying that.”

“It made it worse realising that I knew one of the guys,” he added. “I thought there may be an underlying agenda as to why he was coming back.”

The robbers cleared the safe of cash during the 10 minute ordeal.

Dogado, of Dollis Hill, and Olivera, of no fixed address, were later arrested in an intelligence-led police operation.

Last Friday (June 29) they were sentenced to eight years for three counts of robbery and two years for the firearms offences, after a trial at Harrow Crown Court. They will serve the sentences concurrently.

Mr Isellome said: “That they were both still out there somewhere was something I found hard to cope with, not so much in terms of fear but anger. When I found out that they had been arrested, that was great.”