A MUM and two sons were today learning to live together again after three years of heartache suddenly ended.

Three years of fruitless legal battling ended for mum Angela Batty with a tearful weekend reunion at Manchester Airport.

She was given just four days' notice that their father Frank, who took them from their Rossendale home three years ago and fled to Spain, had finally given in to legal pressure and decided to send Steven James, six, and Vincent Michael, 10, home.

Angela admitted today: "I never thought this day would come - I can't believe it; it's wonderful!"

The brothers are now settling down to a new life at Angela and husband Paul's house in Deerpark Road, Burnley, and both said they were pleased to be home.

Both Vincent and Steven spent yesterday being re-acquainted with old friends that they have not seen since they went to Spain and Vincent said he is looking forward to returning to his former school St James the Less in Rawtenstall.

Steven will be starting at St Mary's RC School in Burnley as soon as it can be arranged.

Vincent said: "I am most looking forward to meeting my cousins again because they are about my age."

The boys' return came two days after Angela's 35th birthday and on the six-month anniversary of her marriage to Paul.

She said: "What better birthday and anniversary present could I have wished for. I have spent three long years knowing I am a mother, knowing I have children but being unable to be a mother.

"I thought this day would never come and the next I would see of my sons would be when they were teenagers and adults and they had left home and managed to trace me. I am just so thrilled to have my family back together again."

A big party is planned when the boys' step-brothers Wesley, 16, and Oliver, 14, who live in Torquay, come up to meet their new relations in about five weeks' time.

Since the boys were taken Angela has fought through the courts to get custody, and orders for the boys to be returned, but her estranged husband has defied the law every time.

She went to Spain in September last year for a prearranged meeting when the boys were to be returned, only to find Frank had taken the boys out of school and fled. Today she found out they had been in hiding in Portugal.

She added: "I will allow them to telephone their father and when things are a bit more settled he will be able to see them."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.