Reproduced from Belfast Newsletter 27 May, 1999

The disgraced actor, sacked from the series when his involvement with drugs hit the headlines, was caught on camera clinching a deal with an undercover journalist pretending to be an Arabian royal.

Alford, 27, on record as describing himself "the biggest mug on the planet", seemed resigned to his fate as the final act of his transition from loveable screen rogue to real life convict was played out in the dock of London's Snaresbrook Crown Court.

His fiancee, Tina Mahon, seemed at times to be fighting back tears as Judge Stephen Robbins told him entrapment by the News of the World clearly played a significant part in what he did.

Greed on his part, however, also loomed large.

"You were undoubtedly motivated by the desire to earn even more money than you were earning as a successful actor, believing you would be opening a nightclub in Dubai."

Judge Robbins told the former TV firefighter that he also had to bear in mind he had previously used cocaine heavily, spending sometimes up to £500 on his habit, before weaning himself off it.

The judge jailed him for nine months for supplying 2.037 grammes of cocaine to the newspaper's reporter in 1997, with a two-month term to run concurrently for a similar count involving 11.9 grammes of cannabis resin.

The actor will have to pay £3,000 towards prosecution costs, as well as meet a £300 confiscation order - the money given to him by the reporter to buy the drugs - or face a further 14 days in prison.