RED DEER, Alta. (CP) - An Alberta woman whose son was said to have discovered he was a missing child when he Googled his name on the Internet was sentenced to two months in jail for child abduction.

Gisele Marie Goudreault, 46, was convicted last month of taking her son Orey out of Canada in May 1989 just as his father was to be granted sole custody of the boy. Goudreault showed no emotion as assistant chief Judge David Plosz sentenced her to two months in jail Wednesday.

"Clearly this crime must be denounced," Plosz said in provincial court. "She created this sad affair by fleeing to, not one, but two foreign countries."

Defence lawyer Markham Silver immediately filed appeals of both Goudreault's conviction and sentence. She was granted bail Wednesday night. The appeals are to be heard June 6.

During the trial, court heard Goudreault gave birth to Orey and raised the boy for 18 months before his father, Rod Steinmann, learned he had a son. The couple never married.

Steinmann, 42, won custody after a judge ruled he had stronger family ties in the central Alberta area. Rather than hand over her baby, Goudreault fled with him to Mexico and then to California, where she found work and was married twice. One marriage ended in divorce and the other was annulled.

The case made international headlines last February when Goudreault was arrested in her Los Angeles-area home in front of her son. A member of the Missing Children Society of Canada said at the time the youth had been playing on a school computer in 2003 when he discovered his past and told a teacher who tipped authorities.

But Silver has refuted reports that the young man, who is now 18, learned he was missing on the Internet. He said Goudreault told her son when he was nine years old about his father.

The lawyer said Goudreault is obviously disappointed with the sentence and the whole case is a sad one.

"The Steinmann family has a son they are not acquainted with. The son doesn't have a father figure, and his mother is now incarcerated many miles away from where he is."

After Goudreault moved to the Los Angeles area, she worked as an administrative assistant for a school district and has since applied to become a U.S. citizen.

Following her arrest, she was held in a U.S. jail for four months and then extradited to Canada.

The charge carries a maximum punishment of a $2,000 fine or six months in jail.

Judge Plosz said Goudreault deserved the maximum jail term, but gave her credit for the time she served in the U.S.

He admonished her for depriving Steinmann of being part of Orey's life.

"He never had the opportunity of watching him grow up," Plosz said. "They are now strangers living thousands of miles a part."

During sentencing arguments, both the Crown and defence cautioned a severe sentence could make it difficult for Goudreault to return to California to be with her son because of U.S. immigration rules.

Steinmann was not in court for the sentencing. He has spoken with his son on the phone, but they haven't seen each other since 1989.

Linda Steinmann, the youth's grandmother, said she's happy with the sentence, but it won't make up for what the family has been through.

"It is not going to bring back 15 years," she said outside court.

The trial also heard that Goudreault provided her son with a stable home life where he thrived, winning awards for scholastic achievement, student leadership and excellence in sports and community activities.

The young man, who has applied for U.S. citizenship, graduated from high school last June and is attending college.

While he has maintained contact with his mother, the two have not seen each other since her extradition.

RCMP say parental child abduction is a serious problem in Canada with 332 reported cases in 2004.

Marlene Dalley, a civilian research officer with the RCMP's National Missing Children's Service, said the number of such cases has been slowly dropping over the past 15 years, partly because the courts have changed the way they handle child custody cases. There were 432 such cases in 1990.

"The courts are looking more at the suitability of both parents to parent," Dalley said from Ottawa. "The shared custody approach seems to be working better."

She also said publicity about how abductions hurt children has also had an impact on parents.

Eric Sommerfeldt, executive director of Child Find Alberta, said nobody wins in such cases.

He said abductions deprive a child of knowing both parents and of having important relationships with grandparents, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

"There are no winners here," Sommerfeldt said from Calgary.