Alfie Evans: Dad hopes to bring his son home

He said: "We got rejected yesterday to go to Italy unfortunately. We could take it further but would that be the right thing to do, would there be more criticism?

"So what we do today is we have a meeting with the doctors at Alder Hey and we now start asking to go home."

He added: "Alfie doesn't need intensive care any more. Alfie is lying on the bed with one litre of oxygen going into his lungs and the rest is him. Some people say it's a miracle, it's not a miracle, it's a misdiagnosis."

Alfie's father Tom Evans said: "He's been off a ventilator for three days now, there's been no deterioration.

"He hasn't woke up, he's still a little bit weak but what we ask for is to go home to sustain his life."

He said Alfie was "still fighting" and was "comfortable" and "content" with a stable heart rate.

He said Alder Hey doctors were "wrong" and added: "Alfie lives, comfortably, happily, without ventilation, without any form of ventilation.

"That must be enough for you now to consider that Alfie may prove you wrong."

Mr Evans said the family did have "appeals to explore".

He said: "All I ask for now is for this meeting to be a positive one and I hope to have Alfie, on the terms of mine and Alder Hey, to be home within a day or two.

"If the meeting doesn't go well today, well then I'll go back to court."

He added: "As I sit next to Alfie's bedside, every second of every day, it encourages me more and more that he will live for 'x' amount of months, possibly years."

He said he hoped to be able to make arrangements with the hospital to get a care plan in place today.

He told reporters Alfie was "not suffering" and "not in pain".