Alfie Evans father has said his son has been breathing unassisted since his life support machine was switched off.

Life support of the 23-months-old was turned off on Monday night after a last-ditch appeal to the high court was turned down.

Tom Evans said that his son was breathing on his own since his life support machine was switched off.

When asked what intervention doctors had made, he replied: “They left him for six hours without food, water and oxygen.”

Mr Evans said:”I felt blessed when they confirmed they were going to give him his water and his oxygen. He’s now on oxygen. It’s not changing his breathing but it’s oxygenating his body.”

“He is still working, he’s doing as good as he can but we do need him to be supported in the next hour. It’s going to be hard.”

The hospital has argued that keeping Alfie on a ventilator is not in “his best interests” and any further treatment was only “futile” but also “unkind and inhumane”.

Alfie has been at the centre of a legal battle, he is in a semi-vegetative state and scans of his brain have shown that almost all of it has been destroyed.

Judges agreed that future treatment would be futile and there was no hope of him getting better.

Alfie’s father said : “They say Alfie’s suffering. Well look at him now. He’s not even on a ventilator and he’s not suffering.”

Alfie has been in Alder Hey, since December 2016, with a rare diagnosed degenerative neurological condition.

Earlier in the day the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs granted Alfie Italian citizenship.