The chairman of a Portsmouth City Council panel investigating the care of brain tumour patient Ashya King has resigned.
Alistair Thompson claimed the scrutiny management panel was being 'blocked' from examining whether Portsmouth acted correctly in handling the case.
Ashya is currently receiving proton beam therapy at a Czech clinic, after his parents sparked an international man-hunt when they took him out of the UK for the specialist treatment.
Portsmouth City Council won a High Court bid to become Ashya's legal guardian after his parents took him from Southampton Hospital to Spain. The council's legal order was ultimately overturned and the child's parents were permitted to take him elsewhere for the treatment, which is not available on the NHS.
The council has now backed the Portsmouth Child Safeguarding Board (PCSB) to run the investigation into its actions.
Thompson told the Portsmouth News: 'The council officers were not allowed in any shape or form to be involved in the review.
'That, in my mind, makes my position as the head of scrutiny of the panel void.
'We need to check that we obeyed the rules and applied them correctly.'
'The council is supposed to be member-led. The members are supposed to represent our residents, but in this case the office has been put above both the residents and members,' he added.
Responding to the claims, council leader, Cllr Donna Jones, said: 'It is entirely right for the PCSB to run the investigation and produce a full and comprehensive report which will be published in full.
'It is inappropriate at this time for the council to hold its own investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Ashya King case.
'The statutory body, the Children's Safeguarding Board, is the appropriate independent and statutory body to undertake a full multi-agency review and any separate investigation at this stage could jeopardise this,' Cllr Jones added.
