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Parents Missing With Boy Who Needs Cancer Op

Parents Missing With Boy Who Needs Cancer Op

A boy needing urgent cancer surgery that his parents are opposed to may have been taken to Poland, a High Court judge has said.

The 10-year-old faces a "brutal and agonising death" within as little as six months if a tumour on his jaw is not removed "very soon", Mr Justice Mostyn said.

The boy, who is not being named, has lived in England with his parents and siblings for two years but the judge said there was evidence he and his mother had left the country two weeks ago and that the boy's father had boarded a ferry to France in the past few days.

The case was brought to court after an NHS trust responsible for the child's care had asked the judge to allow specialists to perform surgery to rid him of his cancer.

Mr Justice Mostyn agreed surgery is in the boy's best interests, despite his parents refusing consent for it and the boy also writing to the judge to say he also does not want the operation.

Instead, the family had expressed a preference for "Chinese medicine" but the judge said the practitioner they had consulted had not treated a cancer of this type before.

As part of his ruling, the judge explained that the boy has a "very rare aggressive" cancer in his right jawbone - a tumour that is about four inches long and one-and-a-half inches wide.

He said a paediatric oncologist had given evidence that the boy would "not slip peacefully away" but that "the cancer will likely invade his nerve system, affecting basic functions such as speaking, breathing and eating.

"His head will swell up grotesquely, his eyes may become closed by swelling, a tracheostomy may be needed to allow breathing.

"Above all, the pain will likely be excruciating. The matter is critically urgent."

He added: "I hope that (the boy) and his parents will read very carefully this judgment and the witness statement and transcript of the oral evidence of (the oncologist) and conclude that there really is no alternative to this procedure taking place and in them all fully co-operating with it.

"It is a strong thing for me, a stranger, to disagree with and override the wishes of (the boy) and his parents.

"But I have absolutely no doubt that (the boy) must be given the chance, a very good chance, of a long and fulfilling life rather than suffering, quite soon, a ghastly, agonising, death."

The boys' parents were "very frightened", the court heard, but the judge was told that the prospect of the boy growing up was completely impossible unless he had surgery.

The Polish embassy in London has been informed.