Former asylum seeker Ruzhdi Nela has won a three-and-a-half-year fight to stay in Britain with his pregnant wife.

Now he is looking forward to settling down in Hove with wife Amy, and bringing up the baby she is expecting in May.

The story of how Amy Granger, 25, former head girl of Varndean School, Brighton, fell in love and married the Albanian asylum seeker first appeared in The Argus last September.

Since then the couple have overcome a series of obstacles to stay together in Britain.

Last Friday Ruzhdi, 19, originally smuggled into Britain in the back of a container lorry, arrived at Heathrow from Tirana, Albania, to be met by Amy.

Ruzhdi is no longer classed as an asylum seeker. Instead he is in Britain as the spouse of a settled person.

After 12 months he can apply for indefinite leave to remain.

With a wife and child, a job as a construction worker and a home with Amy off Hove seafront, he is confident he will be allowed to remain.

He said that one day he might apply for British citizenship.

Last September things were very different and Ruzhdi was being threatened with deportation.

He was advised to go back to Albania and re-apply to enter Britain on the grounds that he was married to Amy.

Amy was given a month's leave from her job as a care support worker for disabled adults.

They both went to impoverished Albania. Amy returned alone to Hove after meeting Ruzhdi's parents for the first time and waited for him to be given a visa.

She said: "I cried when I got the call from Ruzhdi saying he had got the visa and was getting the next available plane to London.

"He is now here legally and no longer looking over his shoulder. All we want to do is to be together, work hard and bring up a family".