Mum stands by bid to stop therapy

Published on 27/02/2013 00:37

A MOTHER says she stands by her legal bid to try to stop her seven-year-old son receiving radiotherapy for a brain tumour, describing the treatment as “barbaric and plain torture”.

A High Court judge ruled late last year that Sally Roberts’s son Neon should undergo radiotherapy for the cancerous tumour against her wishes.

Asked for her view on the legal battle in a radio interview, she said:“I’m upset that they moved forward in the way they have. I’m having to face the side-effects from the radiation and the chemotherapy, which is devastating.”

Ms Roberts, 37, a New Zealander living in Brighton, East Sussex, said “weak and fragile” Neon had lost his hair and suffered weight loss, poor short-term memory and poor co-ordination.

She said: “I have never doubted that he was not going to be alive at the end of this. I just felt that he would be much better off without the treatment and providing the body with what it needs to heal, not bombarding it with radiation, which we are taught to avoid.”

Ms Roberts hit the headlines when she disappeared with Neon. She later apologised for vanishing, saying she had panicked.