The desperate parents of a brain-damaged toddler have arrived at court for day two of their battle to stop their baby son’s life support from being switched off.
Tom Evans – who has launched the case along with the tot’s mother Kate James – broke down in tears yesterday as he heard further hospital treatment for his son Alfie is futile.
The 21-year-old was comforted by his parents and there was a short adjournment before the hearing re-commenced at the High Court in Liverpool.
Lawyers acting for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital have argue that further treatment for Alfie is unkind and inhumane and told the court how the couple had resorted to ‘desperate measures’.
Michael Mylonas QC, representing the trust, yesterday told a court that a German doctor had attended the hospital ‘under the guise of being a friend’, theLiverpool Echo reports.
He added that Alder Hey had been presented with a demand for Alfie to be removed from the hospital, ‘rubber-stamped’ by the doctor.
Tom Evans is pictured arriving at court today. He broke down in tears yesterday as he heard further hospital treatment for his son Alfie is futile
Tom Evans broke down in tears in court this afternoon as he heard further hospital treatment for his son Alfie is futile
Tom Evans covered his face and howled in anguish at the hearing to decide if life support should be withdrawn from his son, Alfie
Lawyers acting for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool argue that further treatment for Alfie is unkind and inhumane (above, campaigners outside court yesterday)
The medic reportedly provided a certificate that said Alfie was fit to be moved out of the hospital – but Mr Mylonas said the NHS trust was highly concerned by his claims and the way he entered the facility.
The lawyer said the doctor had not met with Alder Hey staff, and would not have been able to carry out a sufficiently thorough examination in his visit.
The judge, Mr Justice Anthony Hayden, said he understood why any parent might resort to such ‘desperate measures’ in such circumstances.
Mr Evans began weeping as his barrister Mr Mylonas described his son as ‘sweet’ and ‘lovely’.
The lawyer told the court: ‘One of the difficulties in this case – is that his parents look at him and, barring the paraphernalia of breathing and feeding, he is a sweet, lovely boy, who opens his eyes and will smile.’
‘Release our son’: Tom Evans, pictured above with his mother, outside Liverpool Civil and Family Court this morning
Tom laid his head down on the desk in front of him and burst into tears, before his relatives comforted him, and he and his family members left the room.
The child, born on May 9 2016, is in a ‘semi-vegetative state’ and has a degenerative neurological condition doctors have not definitively diagnosed.
Despite mediation between the parents and hospital specialists caring for Alfie, his parents, Mr Evans and Kate James, want him to undergo further treatment and operations for his condition.
They believe their son responds to them – but the court heard that any movements by the child are spontaneous seizures as a result of touching.
Mother Kate James, 20, said specialists have claimed Alfie (pictured together, left) has no senses but the family dispute the findings
The father-of-one was photographed arriving at Liverpool Civil and Family Courts this morning with his mother. Giving an emotionally charged speech to the press, he described his anguish and pledged to fight the hospital’s wishes.
Mr Evans said: ‘At the moment we are not willing to let him die.
‘He still has function of the brain, he still reacts. We believe Alfie is not dying. He is improving.’
Tom Evans arrives with his mother at Liverpool Civil and Family Court. He is in dispute with medics over his son 19-month-old son Alfie Evans, at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool
Protest: A handful of supporters holding posters and t-shirts have gathered outside Liverpool Civil and Family Court
‘Alfie’s Angels’: A campaigner wears a t-shirt with the heartbreaking message, ‘Believe in miracles’
A campaign launched to raise awareness about Alfie’s plight has won the backing of celebrities Jamie Lomas, Dennis Wise and Rebekah Vardy who visited him in hospital.
Pictured: Alfie Evans, who has an undiagnosed brain condition and is currently on life-support
Mrs Vardy – wife of Premier League footballer and England international Jamie – took to Twitter to report on the boy’s condition as his father claimed ‘he is not dying, he is improving’.
She tweeted: ‘Today Alfie squeezed my finger every time I tickled his little hand. I watched him with my own eyes reacting to his dad’s touch.
‘He is sucking a dummy & spitting it out, he is using his senses. Please help Alfie & his family to save him.’
The campaign to keep Alfie alive was sparked when the hospital said all options to diagnose and treat the unknown brain condition had been exhausted.
Mr Evans and the boy’s 20-year-old mother, Kate James, say specialists have claimed he can’t use senses.
Both dispute some of the findings by the hospital and hope to take the baby to doctors in Italy.
Celebrities including I’m a Celebrity’s Jamie Lomas, Dennis Wise and Rebekah Vardy backed the campaign after visiting the youngster
Tom Evans and Kate James leave the High Court in London as a High Court judge is analysing preliminary issues in the case of their sick 19-month-old son Alfie, who is at the centre of a life-support treatment dispute
They think the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital might be able to diagnose his condition and recommend treatment.
The hospital in Rome is the same one that offered to help Charlie Gard in 2016.
Mr Evans and Ms James want to take Alfie home to die if nothing more can be done to keep him alive.
Mr Evans said: ‘At the moment we are not willing to let him die.
‘But if we have turned all the stones over and don’t wake our child up… we will wait for him to deteriorate and let him die in his own way.
‘We can take him home and still care for him but knowing he will die in our home, knowing we have tried everything.’
But he believes Alfie ‘still has function of the brain’ and reacts to stimuli.
Rebekah Vardy took to Twitter to claim Alfie is able to use his senses after she and othe rI’m a Celebrity stars visited him
Alfie’s parents will beg a High Court judge to ensure that his life support is not switched off at the Liverpool hospital
Both he and Ms James realise that if Alfie lives, he will be disabled because of his neurological illness.
Mr Justice Hayden visited the youngster on Tuesday before the start of the hearing at Liverpool’s Civil and Family Court.
Mr Evans will represent the couple himself at the hearing and is planning to ask for an adjournment in order to find a new legal team.
Almost £60,000 has been raised through a JustGiving page aiming to fund treatment abroad.
A change.org petition has garnered nearly 70,000 signatures on a page asking the hospital to release the baby so his parents can take him somewhere else.
Alder Hey said it understands the difficulty the family faces and said professionals will reach an appropriate care plan for the future.
‘Alder Hey is a specialist children’s hospital which therefore means we treat many children with often complex, life-threatening conditions.
‘Unfortunately despite the best efforts of our clinicians, some children are sadly unable to recover from their illness.’
Alfie’s mother and father are hoping to take him to Italy in order that he can be diagnosed and treatment can be recommended
During yesterday’s hearing judge Mr Justice Hayden offered to visit Alfie in hospital before the full trial in February next year
Mr Evans and Ms James said Alfie was healthy until he ‘stopped developing’ at four months, before a chest infection gave him seizures in December 2016.
As his condition worsened in hospital, specialists feared that he had only hours to live. He is kept breathing by a ventilator.
In 2016 a High Court judge ruled life-support treatment could be stopped for Charlie Gard, whose parents wanted him to undergo trial therapy for his rare genetic disease in the US. Charlie died in July.
The parents of 11-month-old Isaiah Haastrup this week lost their fight to keep the brain-damaged boy’s life-support switched on.