An African migrant smuggled his heavily pregnant wife into the UK illegally then turned drug dealer as a means to support his family.

Ali Camara, 25, was sentenced to nine months in prison after being caught with 18 bags of cannabis, worth over £600, and £180 in cash in Newcastle's Granger Market.

Officers who then searched his home found a further £1,970 worth of cannabis.

In May, Camara travelled to Zaragoza in Spain to collect his wife Oulimatoo Touray, from Gambia, and gave her a stolen passport to get into Britain through Stanstead Airport.

The couple were stopped by officials on entry and Camara was arrested and granted bail.

Ali Camara (left) smuggled his then-pregnant wife Oulimatoo Touray (right, with their baby girl) into the UK illegally then turned drug dealer as a means to support his family

Touray who was around seven months into her pregnancy, had permission to stay in Spain and has now been given temporary leave to remain in the UK, the court heard.

She has since given birth, by cesarean section, to a baby girl.

Within days of appearing in court for the immigration offence, Camara, of Grainger Street, Newcastle, started selling drugs.

His wife sobbed as she was told he had been sentenced to nine months and is waiting to find out if she will be deported.

The mother-of-one, 23, was studying banking and finance in Gambia when she met Camara.

'My husband has lived in this apartment for seven years,' she said today. 'He has lived here for longer than that in the UK.

'He came to the UK to work. He worked for a welding company. We met on social media, he came to visit me. I was living in Gambia.

'He came to Gambia twice. The second time we got married in September. After we got married I got pregnant.

Camara travelled to Zaragoza in Spain to collect his wife Oulimatou (pictured), who is from Gambia, and gave her a stolen passport to get into Britain in May

'He was in Gambia for 11 days. We have been married for one year. We were having a long distance relationship, it was hard for me.

'He didn't come and visit me a lot. We kept in contact over phone and social media.

'We talked everyday but when he came in from work it was late in our country, it was 2-3 o'clock at night.

'I was going to come and stay with him because he had to work. He wanted to work to pay for the baby.

Within days of appearing in court for the immigration offence, Camara, of Grainger Street, Newcastle, started selling drugs. Pictured: His wife Oulimatou

'He gave the baby everything and myself too. He really looked after me.'

Oulimatou said she wanted to come to the UK so they could live together as a family.

Camara, who is originally from Guinea but now has British Citizenship, had been working for a glass company and earning £14,000pa before he was arrested for the airport offence.

He pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration to a member state and supplying cannabis, which he admitted doing for around three months.

Mr Recorder John Aitken jailed Camara for a total of nine months.

The judge told him: 'I appreciate you may have committed this for reasons of your own emotional involvement but the long term effect of that is that you have breached laws which are in place to provide safeguards for the citizens of this country.

'You have taken an unlawful decision to circumvent rules regarding immigration to bring your wife, and now daughter, into this country.'

The judge added: 'It is put upon the citizens of the UK the burden of looking after our wife and child - medical care, money and housing if they need it.

Camara pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration to a member state and supplying cannabis, which he admitted doing for around three months

'Your wife was living in Spain and you simply transported her over to the UK, she wasn't being brought from Guinea or anywhere like that.'

Speaking from the dock, Camara told the court his wife had been in a 'one bedroom flat' in Spain, which he was paying for.

The court heard he did not have enough money to raise the lawyers fees to apply for her to live in the UK legally.

Camara told the court he started dealing drugs to raise money to attend a hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court, before his case was transferred to Newcastle.

He said from the dock: 'At the time I had nothing. '