British boy with brain tumour found in Málaga 'alive and well'

Parents urge police to 'call off chase' and let them arrange pioneering treatment for their son 'in peace'

Ashya King, who has recently been operated on at Southampton General Hospital for a massive malignant stage-four brain tumour, was taken out of the centre by his parents against medical advice.

He is now in the maternity and paediatric unit of Vélez-Málaga hospital and his father Brett, 51, and mother Naghemeh, 45 have been taken into custody.

Interpol was informed after the couple took their son from hospital on Thursday lunchtime – which they are allowed to do for short periods, as he is a long-term patient in rehabilitation – and had not returned for over six hours, but were seen on Friday afternoon boarding a ferry heading for Cherbourg, northern France from Portsmouth.

They were known to have an apartment in, and close ties to, Marbella.

Medics, in conjunction with Hampshire Constabulary, said it was 'urgent' the child was found as he 'may only have hours to live', given that the battery fuelling the machine that feeds him through a tube would not last long as the apparatus is designed to be plugged into the mains.

This battery can only be changed by experts after dismantling the machine, and is merely installed as back-up for when the patient has to be unplugged to visit the bathroom or move to other wards.

Unaware they were being searched for, the couple – who are Jehovah's Witnesses – and their seven children, including wheelchair-bound Ashya drove down to the Costa del Sol in their grey Hyundai.

To end the panic, Brett King posted a video on YouTube, sitting on a bed with his little boy on his lap, alive and very alert.

He explained that the family had travelled to southern Spain to sell their property to pay for cancer treatments that were not available in the UK, particularly on the national health service.

The family had been told nothing more could be done for Ashya, but they are not willing to accept this until they have tried everything and 'will not go back to England' until they have got their child the treatment they want.

“Call off this ridiculous chase. We're not neglecting our son,” storms Brett King on the video.

He said the family is seeking a treatment known as 'proton beam', which was invented in the Czech Republic and is expensive.

“But now we're refugees, almost. We can't do anything. The police are now after us,” complains the boy's father.

“The things we wanted to do to raise the money to pay for the treatment – they've prevented it now.

“Our son is in perfectly good health – we just want to be left in peace.”

Although 'there has been a lot of talk' about the feeding machine batteries, Brett King said this was running perfectly and his son was 'doing well', apparently not having been adversely affected by the day-and-a-half-long journey.

A close family friend had commented on social networks during the search that the family was seeking treatment abroad and told the public not to 'demonise' them.

Paternal grandmother Patricia King said her son was 'the most wonderful and caring father ever', and that her daughter-in-law Naghemeh had been keeping a bedside vigil since Ashya was hospitalised, both of them being devastated by their little boy's diagnosis.

But given that they are the subject of an arrest warrant, now the family has been found, the parents have been taken into police custody for questioning and the sick child, who is paralysed and cannot speak, is in a State-run hospital whilst his two adult brothers are taking care of the four siblings who are still children.

British police say the parents may not necessarily be charged and that even though the arrest warrant was issued for 'child neglect', this 'offence' is only a technicality enabling them to send out the order.

And the arrest warrant was sent out purely to allow police to trace the boy's parents and question them.

UK forces stress that they are keeping 'an open mind' and that the child's mother and father may not in fact have done anything wrong.

The public information office for the Jehovah's Witness community stresses it does not believe Ashya's being taken from hospital has any connection whatsoever with his parents' religion, since the only medical procedure collectively opposed by those who follow the faith is blood transfusions, and Ashya was not due to receive any.

Photograph: Brett King with his son Ashyar (YouTube)