The father of Alfie Evans, the critically ill child at the centre of a bitter life-support dispute, threatened to take out a private prosecution for murder against doctors treating his son, it has emerged.

The Appeal Court heard on Wednesday that Tom Evans had talked of taking out the private prosecutions against three doctors for "conspiracy for murder".

Mr Justice Hayden decided at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in Manchester on Tuesday, that Alfie should not be allowed to leave Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool and travel to a hospital in Italy.

In his ruling Mr Justice Hayden criticised what he described as the "malign hand" of one of the family's advisers, law student Pavel Stroilov, who had been party to Mr Evans lodging a private prosecution of doctors at Alder Hey Hospital.

On Wednesday, Alfie's parents lost the latest round of their legal battle, when three Court of Appeal judges dismissed their appeal against the decision that the child should not be taken abroad for treatment.

Lord Justice McFarlane told Mr Evans’s barrister, Paul Diamond at the Appeal Court hearing: "Your client purported to take out a private prosecution to have three named doctors charged with the criminal offence of conspiracy to murder.