Alfie Evans latest: Severely ill toddler cannot be taken to Italy for treatment, judge says

Severely ill: Toddler Alfie Evans has been taken off life support
PA
Robin de Peyer24 April 2018

Severely ill toddler Alfie Evans cannot be taken to Italy for treatment, a judge has said.

His parents Tom Evans and Kate James sought permission from a High Court judge to take the 23-month-old out of Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.

His father said Alfie’s life support machine was switched off on Monday evening, but that he has been breathing on his own since then.

The boy has been at the centre of an ongoing legal battle over treatment administered to him.

But judge Mr Justice Hayden said on Tuesday: “This represents the final chapter in the case of this extraordinary little boy."

He added that Alfie was "a fighter, resilient, courageous" and said he should be "cared for, on his final days or hours, however long it may be, in a hospice or home or on a ward".

But Mr Justice Hayden ruled there was no substance to the parents' application by the Christian Legal Centre, representing Alfie's parents, to move him to a hospital in Italy.

Alfie’s life support machine was switched off on Monday evening, but he has been breathing on his own since then, his father said.

Writing on Facebook later, he added: "Coming up to 24 hours and he’s fighting with his gorgeous features, pink lips, handsome grown up face, and odd cheeky smile now and again."

Mr Justice Hayden was asked to allow medical experts in Italy, where he has been offered treatment and granted citizenship, to examine Alfie.

Judges have heard that Alfie, born on May 9 2016, is in a "semi-vegetative state" and has a degenerative neurological condition doctors have not definitively diagnosed.

Alfie Evans protesters try to storm hospital 23/04/2018

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Specialists say his brain has been "eroded", but his parents, who are in their 20s and from Liverpool, insist their son is not experiencing pain or suffering.

Mr Justice Hayden said at Tuesday's hearing that Alfie's brain had been "damaged entirely and so too had the capacity of sight, hearing, taste and sense of touch".

"A brain cannot regenerate itself, as I have been told," he added.

In February, Mr Justice Hayden had ruled that doctors at Alder Hey could stop treating Alfie against the wishes of his parents following hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London and Liverpool.

Specialists at Alder Hey said life-support treatment should stop and Mr Justice Hayden said he accepted medical evidence which showed that further treatment was futile.

He said flying Alfie to a foreign hospital would be wrong and pointless.

Court of Appeal judges upheld his decisions. Supreme Court justices and European Court of Human Rights judges refused to intervene.

The couple then argued Alfie was being wrongly "detained" at Alder Hey.

Mr Justice Hayden dismissed that application. Appeal judges upheld Mr Justice Hayden's decision.

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