A YORK mum who fought an international custody battle will jet back to Britain clutching the hand of her little boy.

Allison Williams has won her legal fight for custody of seven-year-old Daniel after an uncontested court hearing in California.

Holding tightly the court order finally giving her full parental rights, Allison, 40, said the decision ended four years of hell.

At times she feared she might never see Daniel again, but at a Pasadena court yesterday the honourable Louise Halvey, a judge of the superior court, gave Allison the authority to bring him home.

Allison had raced to the United States to be reunited with Daniel following the death of his father, Kevin Stucki, after a battle against leukaemia.

The pair had been caught up in lengthy legal battles over Daniel, and had reached a shared custody agreement on his care.

But, following Kevin's death, in Duarte, California, Allison faced a desperate race against time to raise 3,000 dollars to pay for costly custody proceedings.

She succeeded partly thanks to donations of more than £1,000 from Evening Press readers.

Now an emotional Allison is preparing to return to York tonight and begin the new life with Daniel that she has always craved.

She said: "I was so nervous during the hearing. I just kept thinking 'I am his mother'.

"I am so ecstatic. As soon as the judge said 'You can go', I burst into tears. I have been through four years of hell and this is finally it. He's mine.

"I can't tell you how I feel at the moment. It is absolutely brilliant and I can't wait to get him home."

Allison said the long battle had left her emotionally and physically drained.

"I am feeling so exhausted," she said. "There have been times that I thought I wasn't going to do it. "It is going to be a little strange. It is what I have wanted all along but, when I have visited, there has always been the pending pain of goodbye all the time.

"We have always had to part and now we don't any more. It's such a wonderful feeling to have him with me.

"I am grateful to everyone who has helped me. I couldn't have succeeded without it."

Updated: 11:35 Thursday, January 16, 2003