I am astonished to discover that Ashya is still a Ward of Court and that somehow the traumatised Kings have to brief lawyers in Marbella to appear to argue their case in a hearing in the High Court in London on Monday, otherwise it will be the arguments of the Southampton General, in which the Kings have lost all confidence, which will prevail. I tried yesterday to obtain a coherent explanation out of the Portsmouth City Council, who are the drivers of this legal action in their child protection role. I was confronted by flustered officials who were clearly under stress, not one of whom could give any explanation of what was happening and kept referring me to someone else.
Petitions have been handed in to Downing Street, money is pouring into to charities raising funds to help this family, the Secretary of State for Health is sending a top cancer specialist to help the Kings make the right choices for Ashya, the clinic in Prague stands ready, the whole country is watching. There is no child on earth who at this moment has more goodwill and attention, yet someone somewhere believes his interests can only be served by decisions being taken in an adversarial court process by a judge in London, when the entire family is in Spain.
To add to the burden of these parents after all they have had to endure, with Ashya effectively a prisoner in a hospital room in Marbella, is utterly absurd; indeed it is worse. It is cruel. And it has to stop. To continue it under the guise of child protection is an abuse of process. Moreover it exposes this whole saga to the grave suspicion that it was never about this child’s welfare which, if the Southampton Genera had stopped for one moment to think through rationally, it would have known was never at real risk. No, it was about the ego of doctors, who do not like being challenged.
The authorities have set in train a process which has run amok. The obligation to protect children is not, and never has been, a licence to abuse parents.