A four-year-old whose life support was switched off in April despite his parents desperate pleas has made a miraculous improvement.
The boy, who was born with serious disabilities and cannot see or hear, had been kept alive by the machines since 2023, after suffering a serious brain infection which triggered two heart attacks.
But his Christian parents lost their High Court bid against King’s College Hospital NHS Trust earlier this year to send him to a Vatican-backed hospital in Italy for further treatment.
At the time, the judge ruled the boy, who cannot be named, should not be ‘forced to live’ as the burden on the child ‘far far outweighed the benefits’.
Yet in just a matter of months his condition has improved and he has returned home.
In April the boy’s Christian parents lost their High Court bid against King’s College Hospital NHS Trust earlier this year to send him to a Vatican-backed hospital in Italy
Mr Justice Poole, who visited the boy in hospital before allowing doctors to stop treatment, has also now reversed his approval on limiting treatment
He no longer requires a catheter, receives nutrition through a vein and is breathing normally, according to a new report from the judge.
Mr Justice Poole, who visited the boy in hospital before allowing doctors to stop treatment, has also now reversed his approval on limiting treatment.
‘He has confounded all medical expectations and his case underlines the maxim that “medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability”,’ he added.
King’s College Hospital also accepted it would not have asked for permission to withhold treatment if the boy had been ‘in his current condition and circumstances’.
The judge said that the case was ‘highly unusual and raises some challenging questions for the court which must be addressed openly and objectively’.
He also said barristers ‘could not point to any reported case in which a child has survived for months after the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment following a court decision’.
But ‘having anxiously reflected’ on his previous judgment from April, he was satisfied it had been ‘justified’ on the evidence provided.
At the time, Mr Justice Poole ruled that the boy’s ‘parents’ love and devotion to him is so strong that they cannot bring themselves to accept what those less personally connected can see’.
He added: ‘Namely that the burdens to him of treating him to keep him alive far outweigh the benefits, and that it is in his best interests for life-sustaining treatment to cease.’
The boy’s parents, identified only as Mr and Mrs R, labelled the decision in April ‘wholly unethical to bring about his death by choice’.
Responding to the judgement reversal this week, Mrs R said: ‘Our basic point is that statistics don’t help.
‘It would be more honest if doctors acknowledged that he is an individual that medical science doesn’t really understand and isn’t a good basis for predicting what this complicated little boy can do.
‘[The boy] survived when the doctors and nurses who looked after him for months thought he could not.
‘He has a right to life. It seems to us his will to live is strong and his life is good.’
The reversal came about after his parents applied for the removal of the permitted ‘ceilings of treatment’.
The boy’s case is the latest high-profile end-of-life hearing to reach the Royal Courts of Justice, following similarly fraught battles over the treatment of children including Indi Gregory, Archie Battersbee (pictured), Isaiah Haastrup and Charlie Gard
Last year eight-month-old Indi Gregory, who had an incurable genetic mitochondrial condition, died after her life support was removed
In his ruling the judge added that although the boy ‘continues to suffer the burdens of his condition and of some of the treatment … there is also evidence that he is now able to derive pleasure from his life at home with his parents.’
But he also said it was unclear how he had managed to defy the expectations of medical professionals who treated him.
The boy’s case is the latest high-profile end-of-life hearing to reach the Royal Courts of Justice, following similarly fraught battles over the treatment of children including Indi Gregory, Archie Battersbee, Isaiah Haastrup and Charlie Gard.
Last year eight-month-old Indi, who had an incurable genetic mitochondrial condition, died after her life support was removed.
Her heartbroken parents, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, could not persuade High Court and Court of Appeal judges in London and judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to keep her on the machines.
Indi, who was born on February 24 2023, suffered from a rare, incurable and degenerative mitochondrial disease which meant that her cells did not produce enough energy.
Doctors said Indi suffered from significant pain and distress and they could do no more for her.
Upon hearing that doctors had moved to withdraw Indi’s life support, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni even granted her citizenship, with Rome’s Bambino Gesu children’s hospital offering to administer treatment.
But court judges ruled that life support treatment could be withdrawn only in a hospital or hospice, not at the family home.
