Valerie Azzi is fighting to bring her young Algerian husband, who she met on the Internet, to live with her in the North-East. She tells Sarah Foster how, contrary to what the authorities believe, her love is genuine.

A HANDSOME young man stands in the arrivals lounge, his eyes darting nervously about him. In his hand are a bunch of roses - three red, for three years of being in love and two peach, for two people in love. He also carries a small furry camel, the kind you can buy in any Tunisian tourist shop. After what seems like an eternity, the woman he has been waiting for bursts through the doors. They embrace, and he murmurs: "I love you darling" into her hair.

It could be any romantic meeting, except that this is no ordinary couple. For one, while he is arrestingly good-looking, she is striking for her tattoos and spiky red hair. There is also an age gap - she is clearly several years his senior. Yet regardless of how they look, and the TV camera crew sent to capture this crucial moment, they kiss and cuddle like any other loving couple.

Without needing to be prompted, Valerie Azzi, 48, shows me the video of when she met her husband, 29-year-old Algerian Merouane, for the first time. It was given to her as a souvenir by Channel Five, which has made a documentary, Leaving for Love, about the couple. Like the many photographs of Merouane which adorn her Ferryhill home - the only physical evidence of him - she treasures it. She is also proud of her two tattoos bearing both their names and lights up when she talks of her "gorgeous" other half.

Valerie says that first meeting was more than she could have hoped for: "I was so nervous - I hadn't slept for three nights," she says. "But it was lovely. He was everything I expected and more."

She first made contact with Merouane, or "Mer" as she calls him, in February 2001, while chatting to a friend on the Internet. "I kept getting these messages popping up saying, 'Will you talk to me?' So I sent a message back saying, 'You're very persistent, aren't you?' and he asked if we could speak again. We've spoken every night since," says Valerie.

Having discovered the Internet after she inherited a friend's computer, a whole new social life had opened up to her. "I love to sit and talk and I was in my element. I didn't go on to look for love or anything like that - I went on to just chat," she says.

But before long, cracks began to appear in her 29-year marriage to Dougie, which she says was unfulfilling. "He used to be up his garden every day then go upstairs and fall asleep. I felt lonely," says Valerie. "We just drifted apart once I got the Internet."

Being diagnosed with breast cancer, and ultimately having a breast removed, made her feel even lower. "I have no self-confidence - it's all down to my weight and my breast cancer," she says. "I've always said my three sisters are beautiful and I don't know where I've come from."

Her low self-esteem meant that when Mer asked for a photograph, Valerie sent one of a younger and, as she thought, prettier, friend. As time went on, the pair's relationship developed through letters and several hours of phone and Internet conversations every day. "Mer could speak a little bit of English and I think he wanted to learn more. After a few phone calls, it was absolutely brilliant. He's very, very clever," she says, with maternal pride. "If you send a word he doesn't understand, he'll question it and ask what it means and you never have to tell him again."

At first, she kept the fact that she was having breast cancer treatment from Mer, fearing he would be put off, but eventually, she decided to come clean - about this and the photograph. "When I started getting feelings for him I told him the truth. He was upset that I had used someone else's photo. He said the photograph meant nothing - it was the person he was talking to," she says.

Her marriage broke up and the relationship developed further. The couple talked of plans to go abroad and buy a bar, then Valerie suggested that Mer come and visit her. "He said he'd never even considered coming to England. He'd never considered leaving his own country," she says.

Then in 2002, tragedy struck when Valerie's sister Sandra was killed by a man that she too had met on the Internet. Understandably, this made the family fear for Valerie's safety, but she says Mer was supportive, delaying his visit until the court case was resolved.

In February 2003, he tried to obtain a visitor's visa but was turned down by the authorities, who claimed the large amount of money he had in his bank account suggested he would not return home. Since then, he has made repeated attempts to appeal and reapply, but has been refused every time. Valerie says: "We've been penalised because I had breast cancer and I can't work because I'm still having ongoing surgery. They think Mer will be claiming benefits as well but there's a job waiting for him here with a friend of mine."

She says people assume - wrongly - that the marriage is bogus. "A lot of people think he's only after a passport out of his own country but that's not true at all. I think the problem is our age difference but if I'd been an older man and he'd been a younger woman there wouldn't have been an eyelid flickered. There's no law stating that you can't go with a man younger than you."

Undeterred by the authorities' negative response, Mer proposed by sending Valerie a rose with an engagement ring hidden in the petals - an example, she says, of how romantic he is. The wedding was booked in the North-East, but when Mer was again refused entry, it took place in his home village in North Africa in January this year, shortly after the couple's first face-to-face meeting.

Valerie recalls their first night together in a Tunisian hotel. "I had been married for 29 years and had never slept with another man and he had never slept with anyone," she says. "We said, 'If it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't.' He just laid there and I put my arm around him and it just happened. I think we were both in shock after."

She says she was welcomed with open arms by Mer's family, who she claims "love me to bits". Once they got over their fears, most of her own family, including her two grown-up daughters, also accepted the relationship. Only her son Jonathan still has not. "He will not acknowledge me at all but it's his loss at the end of the day," she says.

Valerie dismisses the idea of joining Mer in Algeria, saying simply: "I couldn't stand the heat there," and is determined to bring him to the North-East. She has recently won support from Tony Blair's constituency office and the couple plan to reapply for a visa when Valerie next visits Mer, in January. She says: "I know we'll get him here eventually, even if it takes two or three years. It's just all this waiting..."