A MAN who illegally flew a Syrian national to Bournemouth from France has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Ammar Khalifa, 49, used a family friend's plane to fly Ebrahim Hamad from Cherbourg to Bournemouth Airport on January 7.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard Khalifa had acted out of humanitarian concern for a fellow countryman, who was also the cousin of a family friend, having lost 18 of his own relatives in the ongoing Syrian conflict.

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Peter Johnson said his actions were "a determined attempt to evade immigration controls" with a "carefully thought-out plan".

"It is essential that we maintain control of our borders and control of who enters this country. Your actions deliberately contravened those controls," he said.

Khalifa, who has lived in the UK since 1987 and has a British passport, had initially denied the charge but was convicted on one count of assisting unlawful immigration after a trial.

The court heard he had stopped the aircraft on the runway at Bournemouth Airport before passing immigration control so Mr Hamad could escape through a hangar and into Khalifa's Mercedes M Class.

He was soon found by immigration officers.

At his trial, Khalifa claimed he had thought Mr Hamad was a French citizen.

However, speaking in mitigation on Friday, Leslie Smith said his client had accepted his wrongdoing.

"He says this, 'I put my hands up, I have done something wrong. I have neglected my duty'.

"This is in the context of his being granted rights as a UK citizen."

Mr Smith said Khalifa's accounts had been investigated with no evidence found that he had been motivated by financial gain.

"There is not one suggestion that this was anything other than a humanitarian need to bring this man into the country," he said.

Mr Hamad had told the jury during his trial that he was worried he would be killed in Syria if he refused to fight for government or rebel forces.

The court heard he was granted asylum in the UK and is now working as an assistant manager in a Bournemouth hotel.

The defendant, of Campbell Road, Burton, Christchurch, was described as a "family" man of previous good character, who lived with his wife of 12 years and their children.

He had come to the UK to study having been a student of English Literature at Damascus University, and had not returned to Syria since 1989. He had worked in restaurants, laundries and in office work, but was unemployed at the time of the offence.

Mr Smith said his client had a life-long leg injury, was being treated for Hepatitis B, and had suffered two "minor strokes" through stress since his arrest, and that any prison term would be particularly onerous for him.