The Buzz: UK withdrawing warrant for ill boy’s parents

U.K. prosecutors are withdrawing the arrest warrant in the case of a British couple who took their 5-year-old son out of the country in hopes of getting a new type of radiation therapy for his brain tumor. The Crown Prosecution Service made the move yesterday in a hearing at Britain’s High Court. Ashya King’s case has riveted Britain, with heated debate as to whether authorities acted acceptably in chasing the parents through Europe after they left Southampton General Hospital last week without the consent of doctors.
Brett and Naghemeh King took Ashya out of England and traveled to Spain, where they planned to sell a property to pay at least USD33,000 for proton beam radiation therapy in the Czech Republic or the U.S. They were arrested on a British warrant. But police said the current situation was “not right.” Andy Marsh, chief constable of Hampshire Police, says their intent was to secure his safety — “not to deny him family support at this particularly challenging time in his life.”