A TEENAGER who posed as an African prince to live in a North-East town has been jailed.

A jobs agency in Stockton called in immigration officers when "Prince Ejiro Akpotor" turned up looking for work.

The passport he produced was false and he was found to be an 18-year-old illegal immigrant.

English-speaking Otorme Egigba said he left Nigeria looking for a better life and thought he was in New York when his flight landed at Gatwick, Teesside Crown Court heard.

He ended up in London cleaning lavatories because he had no work papers. A gang supplied him with the passport and they advised him to leave the capital.

He chose Middlesbrough because the soccer club had a Nigerian player - Ayegbeni Yakubu - so it seemed a friendly place.

Two days later, he went into recruitment agency Temp, in Stockton, applying for work and staff became suspicious of his passport, said Richard Parsell, prosecuting.

The real Nigerian prince had been given permission to stay in the UK some time ago, the court was told.

A check on the Home Office computer showed that Egigba entered Britain on December 29, 2004, and applied for a six-month visa, which was refused. He had no previous criminal convictions.

He wrote a letter to the judge which was better than those of most British teenagers, said his lawyer.

Egigba, of no fixed address, was jailed for six months, less 36 days he spent on remand, after he pleaded guilty to possessing a false passport on July 20.

He has been in Castington young offenders' institution, in Northumberland, where the only other Nigerian detainee is in a different wing. He faces immediate deportation back to Nigeria when his sentence ends.

Dan Cordey, mitigating, said: "He came into this country, but it was not what he had been promised.

"He spent his time in London living from hand-to-mouth and earning very little money by doing menial jobs like cleaning toilets.

"His hard-earned money was taken from him and he was given a passport, and he came to Middlesbrough under the naive assumption that he would be able to get a job."

Mr Cordey added: "He is a decent young man and, whatever one thinks about his motives for entering this country, he wanted to better himself. He has tried to work hard and, in that sense, his dreams have been completely shattered. He has ended up in prison.

"While prison will be a great punishment for him he has already been punished there for his naivety and stupidity."

Judge George Moorhouse told him: "This is a very serious offence which fully justifies a custodial sentence."