A Kiwi mother who launched a legal battle to try to stop her son from having radiotherapy for his brain tumour has stood by her stance, saying the treatment is "barbaric and plain torture".
Sally Roberts, who lives in Brighton in England, went on the run with her seven-year-old son Neon last year before a court ordered the treatment go ahead.
With it, Neon has a survival rate of up to 82 per cent but Ms Roberts said she was upset by the decision to press ahead, The Mirror has reported.
She told BBC Radio 5 Live she stood by her legal battle to prevent her son from having the treatment.
"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," she is reported as saying.
Neon was "weak and fragile", had a weak immune system and was unable to able to go to school, she said.
"He is suffering from chronic fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss, hair loss, reduction in saliva, damage to the salivary glands and poor short-term memory," said Ms Roberts.
She told the radio station she had "never doubted that he was not going to be alive at the end of this, with or without treatment".
"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 is what we are taught to avoid.
"I don't understand why we are using it in hospitals. I find it barbaric and plain torture. Needlessly, children are suffering."
In December, a High Court judge dismissed Ms Roberts' attempt to prevent the radiotherapy treatment, saying her judgement had "gone awry".
