Charlie Gard High Court ruling: Doctors given permission to withdraw life support

Doctors can withdraw life-support treatment from sick baby Charlie Gard against his parents’ wishes, a High Court judge has ruled after a hearing in London.

The eight-month-old suffers from a form of mitochondrial disease, a rare genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London said it was in his best interest to stop providing life support and instead move him to a palliative care regime.

However, his parents, postman Chris Gard and Connie Yates, from Bedfont, west London, disagreed, and wanted to bring Charlie to the US for treatment.

The couple said they were ‘devastated’ by the ruling.

There was a scream of ‘no’ as the decision was announced by Mr Justice Frances in the Family Division of the High Court on Tuesday.

The judge had spent three days examining evidence and visited Charlie in hospital.

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He said he made his decision with the ‘heaviest of hearts’ but with ‘complete conviction’ for Charlie’s best interest.

But his parents’ solicitor, Laura Hobey-Hamsher, said outside court that they are ‘devastated’ by the decision to end his life support and are struggling to understand why the judge hadn’t ‘at least given Charlie the chance of treatment’.

A GoFundMe page set up by the couple to help pay for treatment in the US has raised more than £1.2 million.

His parents wrote on the page: ‘We just CAN’T let our baby die when there is something that might help him!

‘We won’t give up on him because he has a rare disease.

‘He deserves a chance and he deserves a life as much as anyone else.’

The judge said he decided Charlie should be allowed to die with dignity, while praising his parents for their campaign.

He said: ‘It is with the heaviest of hearts, but with complete conviction for Charlie’s best interests, that I find it is in Charlie’s best interests that I accede to these applications and rule that Great Ormond Street may lawfully withdraw all treatment save for palliative care to permit Charlie to die with dignity.

‘I want to thank the team of experts and carers at Great Ormond Street, and others who cannot be named, for the extraordinary care that they have provided to this family.

‘Most importantly of all, I want to thank Charlie’s parents for their brave and dignified campaign on his behalf, but more than anything to pay tribute to their absolute dedication to their wonderful boy, from the day that he was born.’