Welcome news for little boy found in car with drug-overdosed couple.

The police images of a couple passed out on heroin in Ohio were the source of shock and horror around the globe, but now the little boy in the backseat has been given a stable home.

The disturbing images of a man and woman unconscious after an apparent drug overdose in a car with a four-year-old boy were circulated widely in September this year.

The two people pictured in the photos, taken and shared by police in an effort to spread awareness of the drug culture in the US, were the child’s guardian grandmother, Rhonda Pasek, and her boyfriend James Acordhad.

Their car had almost hit a school bus in the city of East Liverpool before the pair had to be revived using opiate antidote.

Following a hearing in Columbiana County’s Juvenile Court, it was decided that the child will live permanently with his great-aunt and great-uncle,  according to local newspaper, The East Liverpool Review.

Lori and Terry Lane, of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, were given full custody of their great-nephew.

The boy’s path to a stable home has been a rocky one.

He was taken from his parents not long after he was born in 2012 due to a history of drug use and other offences.

It was then his great-grandparents were handed custody. However, two years later, the elderly couple petitioned the court to have custody transferred to their daughter and her husband — the Lanes.

Custody instead went to his grandmother, Mrs Pasek.

Mr and Mrs Lane filed a motion to seek temporary custody of the boy after seeing the photograph on a TV news broadcast. It was awarded to them the same day.

No one was in court to contest full custody being awarded to the Lanes, so the order was extended to a permanent arrangement, The East Liverpool Review reports.

The child's grandmother didn’t object or attend the hearing.

The 50-year-old is still serving a six-month sentence at the county jail for child endangering and public intoxication related to the incident.

The Lanes' legal representative said the boy is adjusting well to his new home.