A woman has been reunited with her son via social networking site Facebook, 27 years after he was 'kidnapped' by his father.

Avril Grube, 62, from Poole in Dorset, claimed that in 1982, when her son Gavin Paros was aged three, her estranged husband took him to Hungary for what should have been a weekend away, according to the Guardian. They were already separated before he kidnapped their son.

Grube contacted the authorities and made repeated attempts to locate Gavin and even tried to enlist the support of the then prime minister, Margaret Thatche. But after spending many unsuccesful years looking for him, she thought she would never see him again.

I tried everything, but nobody wanted to know, Wilson told the BBC. The search ended in March when Wilson typed Paros' name into a search engine.

But her younger sister, Beryl Wilson, 59, from Liverpool, searched for Paros's name on Google and discovered his Facebook page on which he had listed his mother's name.

After contacting her nephew, Wilson said: As soon as I found him on Facebook I phoned Avril and said, I have some important news, and told her to sit down, and then I heard a merciful scream, she said.

It was the happiest day of her life when she met her son. She said there were no words to describe it.

Gavin has got a family and three children and they are desperate to come to England and live but he needs help to find a house and job.

Grube and her son have since been in contact via a translator, and the pair met in her Dorset home recently. Wilson says Grube is on cloud nine.

Google Facebook