It nearly split us but we made Ashya well again
Dad back at hospital where he took son
THE parents of brain cancer child Ashya King who snatched him from an NHS hospital nearly divorced over the fight for his life.
As UK doctors gave Ashya the all clear, his mum Naghmeh revealed she had consulted divorce lawyers.
But after the emotional good news the couple are stronger than ever.
Brett, 54, even returned to Southampton hospital, from where they took their son, for a second opinion.
Naghmeh said in September she and Brett were living apart and at loggerheads over Ashya’s health. She said: “Every morning I woke up and I’d get upset. In the end I went to see a lawyer to find out about a divorce.”
They sparked an international manhunt three years ago by taking Ashya, then five, from hospital without doctors’ consent. In Spain they were arrested and thrown in jail before a judge freed them.
The couple feared chemotherapy and conventional radiotherapy could kill him so, instead, sought pioneering proton treatment in Prague, Czech Republic. UK doctors now say “there is no sign of any tumour recurrences”. Brett said: “I choked up when the radiologist told me. In the car I started crying.”
But when a scan showed a dark shadow Brett, of Southsea, Hants, returned to Southampton hospital.
A letter from paediatric oncology Dr Juliet Gray wrote: “Dear Mr King, I have reviewed Ashya’s MRI scans with our radiologists and I am pleased to say there is no sign of any tumour recurrences and there is nothing that requires any urgent interventions.”
Brett said Ashya was back at school and was happy and “full of life”.