A MOTHER whose millionaire son has been held for 18 months in an Arab jail has vowed to continue the fight to free him.

Businessman George Atkinson, who founded the Desert Classic Golf Tournament and designed the award-winning Emirates Golf Club, was imprisoned in Dubai 18 months ago after he clashed with country's leaders.

He was arrested after he refused to sell them the rights of the lucrative professional golf tournament and was held without charge for more than 12 months.

Earlier this year he was charged with conspiring to defraud the Government of Dubai by overcharging them to build a golf course and of making illegal profit from building the golf course.

The offences are alleged to have taken place up to six years before his arrest. For the past four weeks he has been in solitary confinement and now his mother, Mrs Louise Atkinson, of Edenfield, near Bury, is pinning her hopes on her son's defence lawyers, who will present their case on Sunday.

She and her son's wife, Helene, have written hundreds of letters to Prime Minister Tony Blair, local MPs, the Foreign Office and leading golf players appealing for help, but to no avail.

"It's like flogging a dead horse," said Mrs Atkinson. "They say they can't interfere in another country's business.

"I just feel they are trying to pin something on him. They'll only release him when it suits them.

"I try to think that each day he is in prison it will be a day nearer to him being released.

"We all thought he would be home by last Christmas but now we just hoping keeping our fingers crossed for this Christmas."

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