Ashya’s parents, Brett and Naghmeh King sparked a huge police search after they took their son from Southampton General Hospital in August without the permission of his doctors, after the funding for the specialist treatment for his brain cancer was refused.
Proton Beam Therapy is believed to be less damaging than regular radiotherapy, as it uses high energy protons which are directly fired at the tumour, reducing the harm to other organs and tissues.
The couple travelled with their family to Spain where they were later arrested and separated from Ashya and placed in police custody.
Brett and Naghmeh pleaded with the authorities and following a huge public outcry in the UK, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped their arrest warrants and the couple were released and reunited with their sick son.
Ashya has now completed a 30 session course of the therapy, at the Proton Therapy Center in the Czech Republic, which last month the NHS agreed to fund after a dramatic U-turn.
However it was revealed earlier the King family will not return to the UK today and will instead go back to Spain. In an interview Brett said the family “do not feel safe” and admitted he feared “something might happen” should they return to their home.
He added: “It is our intention to go back to England but we just want to give it some distance, some time at which will hopefully they say this investigation [into what happened when they removed Ashya from the hospital and the police search] will finish in March, which is great for us because that is about five months.
“Hopefully, Ashya will be well along in his treatment in Spain by then.”
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