A British woman who was arrested in Montreal for allegedly abducting her daughter and fleeing across the globe is set to be extradited to the United Kingdom.

A lawyer representing Helen Gavaghan said Friday she would soon be extradited to the U.K. to face one charge of child abduction.

"It's a consent to surrender," prosecutor Maguy Hachem. "Basically she's consenting to be returned to the United Kingdom."

Gavaghan was arrested last Friday after she and seven-year-old Pearl Rose Gavaghan Da Massa were spotted in Montreal. Pearl disappeared from a nursery school in Manchester, England on Dec. 9, 2008.

Her lawyer says the reason she is not fighting the extradition order is that she still hopes to win full custody of Pearl in court.

"She wants to be close to her child, that's it," her lawyer Pascal Lescarbeau said.

Gavaghan's friends protested her arrest and Pearl's return to her father, Henry Da Massa, and they were at the Montreal courthouse Friday to show their support.

"It's obvious a mother wouldn't go to such extremes for no good reason," said Gavaghan's friend Andrea Beverley.

Gavaghan claims the reason she did it was because she and her daughter were victims of abuse.

Manchester police investigated, then rejected the mother's claims of child abuse. The family court judge who heard the custody case also dismissed the mother's allegations that Da Massa was a bad father, granting joint custody of Pearl. Gavaghan simply ignored the custody order and fled her home country.

Police allege Gavaghan left Britain with Pearl without the consent of her father. It is believed the pair first travelled to Mexico and then later to Texas. In 2010, the two were spotted in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood.

Toronto police said Gavaghan was living in Toronto for more than a year under the name of Dana Flaherty. Pearl was reportedly living under the name of Bella Flaherty. Investigators said the pair moved before police could catch up with them.

Pearl was located after a Montreal man spotted the girl with her mother on the subway and called 911. Representatives from The Missing Children's Network and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection said the man felt the mother and daughter were acting unusual and decided to contact authorities.

A family law expert said Friday that Gavaghan's hope to win full custody of her daughter has been severely compromised by her actions.

"To take the law in your own hands is the worst thing you can do," said Sylvie Schirm. "It's almost guaranteed you'll lose custody of that child for the rest of your life… it's a serious indication of a lack of parental capacity if you act like that."

Meanwhile, a father is struggling to reconnect with a daughter he hasn't seen in three years – nearly half her life.

"Within a space of 48 hours, we went from Pearl having believed she had no father to actually being in the same room with me," Da Massa told CTV Montreal in a telephone interview from Manchester. "(That) is a huge step for a child of her age, enormous…(but) it couldn't have been more positive from day one."

Da Massa's next step is to sign Pearl up for school, which she's never attended as Gavaghan was home schooling her to avoid detection. Da Massa says he will cooperate with authorities so Pearl can maintain some contact with his mother.

With files from The Canadian Press and ctvtoronto.ca