The parents of six-year-old Ashya King, who were briefly jailed after taking him from a British hospital to seek treatment abroad, put their child at risk, a report has found.
A major international manhunt was launched in August last year after Brett and Naghmeh King removed their son from Southampton general hospital against doctors’ wishes because they did not want him to have conventional radiotherapy.
They were later traced to Málaga, Spain, where they were arrested and then released, allowing them to take him to Prague for proton beam therapy. At the time, Ashya could not swallow and had to be fed through his nose, but his parents believed it was a gentler form of radiotherapy that would have fewer long-term side effects.
Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Board studied how the authorities handled the case of Ashya and concluded that while hospital staff showed they clearly worked hard to achieve a partnership with the parents, “nevertheless there is clear evidence that this relationship deteriorated over time”.
The report added: “This resulted in the parents removing their child from hospital, without discussion with medical staff, in order to take him abroad where they thought they would be able to access the services that they considered best met his needs … this action put him at risk.”
It was also stated that one factor was a delay in obtaining a second opinion for the parents. “While the doctors’ view that this was not needed immediately was accurate in terms of the child’s clinical needs; this failed to take account of the indirect message that was given to the parents, which was that their wishes and rights were overruled by the professionals.
“There were also some concerns about the parents’ actions in criticising and disregarding nursing advice which needed to be addressed more directly.”
It suggested a formal meeting could have been held to discuss directly the worries that health professionals had about their willingness to accept guidance.
The report adds: “Once the parents had removed the child from the hospital there were limited options available to the agencies as there were real concerns that he was at immediate risk of significant harm.
“These concerns were partly a result of the parents concealing the actions they had taken to ensure his safety and were compounded by them failing to respond to attempts to contact them.
“The legal options available to agencies were draconian and did not allow for any flexibility in application.”
Ashya’s case prompted wide public sympathy for the parents, who spent more than 24 hours in jail in Marbella after UK authorities issued a European arrest warrant. Speaking in March, the parents said that Ashya was cancer-free, adding that he had made a “miracle” recovery from brain cancer.
Last week the woman in charge of the medical centre in Prague that treated Ashya said she was delighted with his progress.
Iva Tatounova, director of the Proton Therapy Centre, said: “He’s doing fantastically. I’m over the moon actually. He walked to the centre on his own feet. He didn’t need a wheelchair.
“He’s speaking and playing with other kids and his siblings, and next week he’s going, for the first time, to a school.”
Last year in the wake of Ashya’s case, a group of leading child cancer doctors wrote to NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, to express concerns that other families would reject NHS advice and demand treatment abroad which could reduce children’s chances of survival.