Ashya King spent a comfortable night in a Spanish hospital with his mother at his bedside after a police guard was withdrawn.
The five-year-old brain tumour patient was reunited with his parents yesterday after four nights apart following their release from custody. They were arrested on Saturday, having fled Southampton General Hospital in search of an alternative treatment.
Sources at the at Materno-Infantil Hospital in Malaga said the police officers guarding Ashya in his fourth-floor room were withdrawn at lunchtime yesterday.
His mother Naghemeh, 45, was the only person with him last night as she got a few hours’ sleep in an armchair. She remained at the hospital today where Ashya is expected to see a cancer specialist.
Leaving through a back door of the hospital last night, Ashya’s father Brett spoke of the first moments he saw his son.
“He couldn’t breathe he was so happy,” he said. “He was so pleased to see us. We’re trying to be hopeful.” Mr King added: “He’s not in such a good state as when we left him.”
The couple were freed from Soto del Real prison near Madrid on Tuesday night after British authorities abandoned their attempts to extradite them, amid a public backlash.
They want their son to have proton beam therapy in the Czech Republic. Since their release, the Proton Therapy Centre in Prague said it had been sent Ashya’s medical records and believed the technique was suitable for him. They had left the Southampton hospital without the consent of doctors.
The Malaga hospital source said it was possible Ashya could receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy there, meaning that he may not have to return to England before going on to Prague.
The Prime Minister said it appeared that “common sense” had now prevailed, with Ashya’s reunion with his parents.
Speaking on ITV1’s Good Morning Britain, David Cameron said: “I think in the end common sense won out and this poor child has been reunited with his family, but it is tragic they were separated. Having had a disabled child often in hospital being fed through a tube, those pictures absolutely meant so much to me, because the thought of having your much loved boy separated from you for all those hours and days, I can’t think of anything more painful for a parent.”
A fundraising page set up to help pay for the proton beam treatment has so far raised more than £21,000, while charity Kids’n’CancerUK said they have agreed to pay the £100,000 needed for Ashya’s treatment, plus living costs, after donors pledged £35,000 in 24 hours.
