The father of Alfie Evans, the British toddler who was taken off life support against the wishes of his parents earlier this year, has hinted at a fresh legal battle in the wake of his son’s premature death.
Tom Evans fought valiantly to have his son, who was suffering from a degenerative neurological disorder, transferred to a Vatican-affiliated children’s hospital in Rome. But despite Alfie’s case being bounced between court appeals, and even with the advocacy of the pope himself, nothing could be done. The court ruled that it was in Alfie’s “best interests” to be removed from life support. He died in April, just shy of his second birthday.
‘We Will Pursue Justice for Our Beautiful Boy’: Family of Alfie Evans Say the Fight is Far From Over
Despite remaining relatively quiet in the months following their precious boy’s death, it appears that Tom may be gearing up for a fresh legal battle against the medical authorities who allowed his son to die.
“It’s been 1 month and 2 weeks since our gladiator was [taken] away from us, deprived, neglected, mistreated and respected!” Evans wrote in a June 16 Facebook post. “We wanted everyone to know that in time as we grieve, we will be speaking out further [about] the build up to Alfie’s death,” he continued, “and we will be speaking out the truth and in detail about the week that we had to go through, that no other parents should ever, ever go through or imagine!”
Evans wrote that the “world needs to know what happened in those five days and what we did and went through to have Alfie cared for when he proved Drs wrong!!”
One of the most controversial elements of this heartbreaking case was when doctors assured Alfie’s parents that the 23-month-old would last a matter of minutes following the withdrawal of life support. But, to everyone’s amazement, Alfie began to breathe on his own — for days.
“I would like to remind the world [that] those [doctors] told me and Kate and all the courts [that] Alfie wouldn’t last longer than five minutes!” Tom wrote. “He survived a further five days and fought hard. He should have been [given] respect, care, decency.”
Tom stated that instead of helping his son, the hospital “paid £143k on murdering my son and taking our lives away from us!!!!”
Then, he issued an ominous warning to those who sanctioned the death of his boy: “We are not done!”
“We are angry, upset, distraught, and truly heartbroken. Alfie meant the world to us he’s been apart of our lives for 2 years and through the good and bad we have cherished him through every moment and always felt blessed to have him apart of us,” Tom continued. “We thank everyone for your amazing courageous support it’s helped us in the deepest struggles and in the hardest days but you along with Alfie have helped us get through it and we thank you all sincerely. We will get JUSTICE FOR ALFIE.”
Sarah Evans, Alfie’s aunt, also lamented the hospital’s willingness to shell out almost $200,000 to have his life ended at the hands of medical professionals.
“Over £145 to kill my nephew?!” she wrote on Facebook. “We had a hospital. We had the money to take him elsewhere. We had the plane ready. We had Alfie fighting, and they paid this to kill him? Ask yourselves why.”
Sarah posted a screen shot of an email which detailed the staggering figure. The exact amount spend by Alder Hey on the highly-publicized legal case was revealed by Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation after a freedom of information request was made by a member of the public.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156523175239923&set=pcb.10156523177734923&type=3&theater
She conveyed her utter horror at the conditions she and Alfie’s family were confined to during his retention at Alder Hey Children’s hospital.
“We had no chance of saving our warrior Alfie when we had 60 plus police officers guarding that hospital,” she wrote on Facebook. “We the family got our bags checked when we went to visit Alfie, as well as being escorted by police down the corridor to see him…A nurse had sit outside to watch us like we were criminals, as well as 3-4 police outside Alfie’s room, 3 outside the ward and 2 at the end of the corridor, as well as all the exits.”
“They [did] wrong, and the truth will be out soon,” Evans added.
Faithwire will keep you updated with any further developments on this story.