RESIDENTS in a town are set to demand that a "model citizen" threatened with deportation is allowed to stay.

Not only are people in Middlesbrough supporting Liberian Syndou Diarrassouba, but the borough council could take up the case of the African, who was voted student of the year at Middlesbrough College.

Councillor Bob Kerr will ask Middlesbrough Council to urge Home Secretary Charles Clarke to let him stay.

The council will be presented with a petition collected by local artists on behalf of poet Mr Diarrassouba, who fled a civil war in Liberia.

Coun Kerr said: "Syndou fears he will die if he is returned to Liberia, and his fears are genuine and well-founded."

Rowena Sommerville, of the You Are Here project at Tees Valley Arts, said: "Syndou has lived in Middlesbrough for the last three years and, in that time, his courage, modesty, gratitude and poetic talent have impressed everyone he has met.

"He has been a model citizen.

"There is support for him to stay here, from friends, fellow students, college tutors and all sorts of people who have either met him or just read or heard his poems."