Parents of Ashya King released from Spanish jail

A Spanish judge has ordered the immediate release of the parents of a seriously ill British boy from a Madrid jail, a court source said.

Britain‘s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said earlier it would withdraw the European arrest warrant for Naghemeh and Brett King, parents of five-year-old Ashya King, who has a brain tumour.

They were separated from their son on Saturday, following a two-day cross-border manhunt initiated after they ignored medical advice and removed him from a hospital in Southampton, southern England, and took him to Spain.

The high-profile case of the parents’ arrest and separation from their son prompted British prime minister David Cameron to call for “an outbreak of common sense“ amid widespread condemnation in the country‘s media of the British police‘s pursuit of the couple.

"No further action will be taken against Mr and Mrs King and we are now in the process of communicating this decision to the Spanish Authorities so that they can be reunited with their son as soon as possible," the CPS said today.

Mr Cameron had earlier expressed sympathy for the couple‘s plight but said the government could not tell the police either in Britain or Spain what to do.

"I just hope there will be a rapid outbreak of common sense so that the family can be reunited with this young boy and the best treatment can be given him either in the United Kingdom or elsewhere," he told a British radio station.

An online petition calling for Ashya to be reunited with his parents has now attracted more than 130,000 signatures. Ethan Dallas (16) who started the petition, delivered it to Downing Street today.

The boy‘s parents have said they took him out of hospital because they wanted him to receive a different type of treatment, prompting questions about whether the British police overreacted in launching a Europe-wide manhunt.

Under the Spanish judicial system, the state prosecutor‘s request for bail needs approval from a judge, although usually the prosecutor‘s request is upheld in such cases.

Ashya‘s brother Danny, who was allowed to visit him in hospital in Spain, told ITV News the boy was “fine“ and that his condition had not changed since he entered hospital in Malaga where he is being treated.

The chief constable of Hampshire police, which sought the parents‘ arrest, defended that decision in a letter published today, citing the medical evidence and the level of concern for the child‘s safety, but also called for the parents to be allowed to spend time with their son.

“Our intent was to secure his safety not to deny him family support at this particularly challenging time in his life,“ chief constable Andy Marsh said in the letter.

Reuters