MOTHER Marie Algin has won back her abducted son in a landmark judgement after taking her fight to the remote home town of her Turkish husband.

But Mrs Algin is now living with two-year-old Adam under police protection at the home of the Honorary Consulate following death threats.

The 27-year-old nursery nurse must stay in Turkey a further eight weeks with Adam after his father appealed against the decision to return him to his Tyneside home.

Her fight for justice has taken on enormous diplomatic significance, the first test of Turkey's pledge to respect international law as part of its bid to win a place in an integrated Europe.

It is now ten weeks since Mrs Algin, of North Shields, received the crushing news that her estranged husband Murat Algin, 33, had used a falsely-obtained passport to fly to Istanbul with Adam and then crossed the length of Turkey to his home town of Sanliurfa, near the Syrian border.

Last week, she made the same journey and on Tuesday, at a court in Sanliurfa, Judge Esna Ozkan ruled that she be given custody of Adam.

Judge Ozkan's ruling was made under the terms of the Hague convention. He also ruled that any future custody matters must be settled in England.

But there was to be further heartache when Mr Algin and his family refused to hand over Adam. Eventually, they were accused of kidnapping and it was only on Friday that Adam was produced and handed over to his mother.

Mrs Algin said: "He is well and has remembered the bits of English that he had just started to speak before being taken."

She was just 17 when she met Newcastle University student Murat Algin ten years ago at a city nightclub.

She has had to fund her own travel and accommodation costs, though legal aid provided for a lawyer in Britain, child welfare specialist Jenny Goldstein, of the Tyneside firm Samuel Phillips.

Ms Goldstein said: "It must be very daunting to have to travel alone to a foreign country, to the home town of the man who abducted your child in order for justice to prevail."