Archie Battersbee's Mum Claims The Wrong MRI Was Submitted To Court
Topics: News
Ali Condon
Featured Image Credit: PA Images / Alamy
Topics: News
Archie Batterbee's mother, Hollie Dance, has claimed that she suspects the wrong MRI scan was submitted to court during proceedings.
On Wednesday, 3 August, the family's last hope to keep the young boy's life support switched on was dashed, when the European Court of Human Rights rejected their bid to grant him more time.
Archie, who has not woken up from a coma after he was discovered unconscious by his mum in their home in Southend, Essex in April, is currently at Barts Health NHS Trust in Whitechapel, east London.
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Hollie Dance, the mother of Archie Battersbee, said the UK has treated her son’s injury as 'black and white' and she alleged that the wrong MRI scan may have been submitted to the courts during proceedings.
“We seem to be so behind in our medical stuff over here - it’s just very sort of straightforward, you know," she told Times Radio.
“It’s a brain injury; they say it’s death. It’s very black and white over here, very cut and sharp.
“Other countries are offering treatment. They said he is a prime candidate for treatment because he’s only 12 years old. He should be given that option to actually take that treatment and I agree he should be given that option.”
She continued: “Although Archie’s got 10% necrosis of the brain stem, it’s 5% of the overall brain and although the necrosis is not reversible, the 5% damage to the whole brain is reversible."
Hollie went on to allege that the MRI scan that was submitted to court during their trial was not actually Archie's.
She said: “It’s going to come out in the future, and obviously we haven’t had a chance to put none of this forward in the court because we’ve been blocked from speaking.
“But there’s strong, strong doubts that the MRI imaging that was put across into the court was actually Archie’s MRI. The MRI that was put forward had nine bottom teeth - Archie’s got 12. So there’s lots of things that the court hasn’t had the chance to look at because we haven’t been allowed to put any."
Following the ECHR's ruling, Archie's parents were told that their son's life support would be switched off at 11am on Thursday (4 August), unless they filed an application to the High Court to transfer their son to a hospice by 9am.
Hitting out at the short timeline they were given, Hollie claimed: “This really isn’t the case and I think that the letter that went out quite sort of late yesterday evening saying that just again, a bit of a blackmailing letter, you know: ‘You’ve got till nine o’clock’, leaving the lawyers again under pressure, which is what this hospital has done from day one of being here really. "Everything’s just been so high-pressured."
She went on to say that the hospital previously told them they would be able to move Archie to a hospice but then they 'just totally went back on their word'.
Asked how she felt about the decisions that lie ahead today, she tearfully said: “It’s going be awful today. I woke up absolutely sick to my stomach. Like, I just feel this hospital have so much to answer for and I don’t really know what else to say today.”