European Court Turns Down Life Support Appeal For Boy

A hospital has given Archie Battersbee’s parents until 9am today to launch a High Court bid to move him to a hospice, otherwise his life support will be turned off at 11am.

- Lamiat Sabin

It comes after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) refused an application by Archie’s parents to postpone the withdrawal of his life support.

Archie, 12, has been kept alive by ventilation and medication since he was found unconscious at home in Southend, Essex, on 7 April.

His mother Hollie Dance believes that he may have been attempting an online challenge when he suffered brain damage.

Doctors were preparing to switch off his life support at 11am yesterday, but it was postponed pending the ECHR’s decision after Ms Dance and Archie’s father Paul Battersbee made a last-minute application to the Strasbourg-based court at 9am.

In a number of challenges at the UK’s highest courts, the parents sought to override the decision of doctors at the Royal London Hospital, who said that it is “highly likely” Archie is brain-stem dead and it’s in his best interest for the life support to end.

But shortly after 6.30pm last night, the ECHR said it refused the parents’ request, adding that it would not “interfere with the decisions of the national courts to allow the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from [Archie] to proceed”.