Little Liam's battle ends

By MARTIN JOHNSTON and FRANCESCA MOLD

Brendan Holloway read stories to his dying son and put the other children to bed. Then he and Trena Williams sat with little Liam Williams-Holloway in a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico as he closed his eyes and never woke up.

The blond, blue-eyed boy from Hawea Flat in Central Otago brought a nation together in sadness that some one so young should be dying, but divided it over his medical treatment.

He died early on Wednesday morning after battling cancer for a third of his short life. He was five-and-a-half years old.

Family friend Jude Battson read a statement from his family yesterday: "He waited till we were all together then peacefully let go."

Liam and his mother were at the Mexican clinic for alternative therapies. His father had been in New Zealand for about a month with the couple's other children, seven-year-old Molly and Ned, 17 months.

They flew back last Sunday to be with Liam.

Ms Battson said: "They had nearly a full day together. Liam was communicating with them."

A funeral service and cremation took place in Mexico, and the family will come home next week.

Liam was at the centre of a high profile hunt after his family spent four months on the run from doctors last year.

Doctors went to court to have him return to conventional treatment after his parents abandoned chemotherapy for the cancerous neuroblastoma on his jaw.

They turned instead to alternative healing, and Liam became a national symbol of the tug-of-war between conventional medicine and controversial alternative therapies. His plight also plunged the nation into debate on the rights of parents to decide treatments for their children.

Ms Battson said Liam's parents had no regrets about their actions.

Liam still had the tumour when he died, although it was shrinking, "but inside his body, it was tired."

Wellington Hospital child-cancer specialist Dr Barkat Hooda said yesterday, "Not all neuroblastoma is a death sentence."

Survival chances were between 20 and 80 per cent, depending on factors including the degree of spread of the disease and the child's age.

Christchurch oncologist Rob Corbett said Liam's cancer was potentially curable and his parents made an "amazingly illogical decision" to cease chemotherapy. "He had a tumour that had a reasonable chance of being cured ... He has died because his parents chose something else."

Children's Commissioner Roger McClay said he was saddened by Liam's death.

"His mum and dad did the best they could. They did what they felt compelled to do, and that's what any parent would do."

Liam's story began in January last year when his parents abandoned chemotherapy and began a search for an alternative.

But Healthcare Otago doctors, who initially agreed to the couple's request for time to look at alternatives, became worried when the youngster had not returned after three weeks.

They believed Liam would die within three to six months without chemotherapy.

The Family Court took legal guardianship of Liam and appointed a doctor to care for him. The court also asked the then Children, Young Persons and Their Families Agency to begin a search for Liam.

The court order led to police searches of natural clinics on February 23, and papers relating to Liam's treatment at the Rainbow Health Clinic were discovered.

On May 6 the Family Court, frustrated by the fruitless search, discharged the custody order making Liam a ward of the state.

Just 24 hours later, the family came out of hiding, put their house on the market in November and took him to the Tijuana clinic..