Archie Battersby: Court refuses to delay 12-year-old boy’s withdrawal from life support

12-year-old Archie Battersby suffered brain damage in April when he choked, according to his mother, while participating in a viral challenge that went viral on the internet.

The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, had intended to finish treatment by 2pm on Monday, following previous decisions by the High Court and Court of Appeal, but the deadline has been put on hold until a new appeal is heard – and has now been moved to 12pm on Tuesday. , according to Watchman.

Holly Dance, 46, and Paul Battersby, 57, of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, have asked for an extension of legal stay for the Supreme Court judge’s ruling, allowing Archie, who suffered catastrophic brain damage in April, to be treated. 7, it was suspended.

The couple have been fighting a legal battle against the Barts NHS Trust since May, asking that their son be allowed to die in the most “natural” way possible.

With the decision now in place, Holly Dance has admitted that she will defy the ruling. “We made a promise to Archie, we’ll fight to the end. And Archie is still fighting,” he noted.

“If tomorrow is the last day, so be it, but we will appeal to the Supreme Court,” he asserted.

However, according to the ruling of the Court of Appeal, “every day [Archie] Continuing to receive life-sustaining treatment is against their best interests, and so residency, even for a short period of time, is against their best interests.”

Edward Devereaux QC, a representative for Archie’s parents, argued that the court had no “discretion” to ignore the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) or the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, on which the request to postpone the decision was based, because doing so “would be a flagrant violation of and is not acceptable to international law.”

Therefore, the court has also been asked to grant residency to allow the CPRD to consider Archie’s case or, given the uncertainty as to how long this will take, to grant residency within one week to obtain information from the Commission regarding the possible timeframe for your decision.