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Topics: News
Emma Guinness
Archie Battersbee's family have been delivered the heartbreaking news that his life support will be switched off despite their last-minute appeal.
Doctors at the Royal London hospital said he was brain steam dead and a High Court judge ruled that switching off the support was in his best interests. However, Archie's mum wanted to give him more time.
Archie's family reached out to the European Court of Human Rights in a bid to give him more time to recover from the coma he has been in since April.
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His mum, Hollie Dance, said that she wanted her son to be moved to a hospice in a 'worst case scenario'.
She said: "The courts are going on and really focusing in on the word dignity.
"What is dignified in dying in a busy hospital room full of noise with the door open, people coming in and out continuously, when Archie could be in a very peaceful garden with squirrels and wildlife running around to have his life support withdrawn there."
However, despite her son being declared brain stem dead after reportedly taking part in an online challenge, Hollie held onto hope that he could recover.
She said that she was considering treatment options outside the UK, saying that there are other countries 'that want to take Archie and they want to treat him'.
It was reported that one of the countries in question was Japan.
However, while his family have held onto hope, the ruling that it is in Archie's best interests to have the support withdrawn has been maintained.
Sir Andrew McFarlane explained the court's decision and said: "Every day that [Archie] continues to be given life-sustaining treatment is against his best interests.
"I concluded that there should be no stay other than a short stay for the parents to take stock and consider whether they want to make any further application to the supreme court."
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot previously ruled that Archie had passed away 'at noon on May 31st 2022, which was shortly after the MRI scans taken that day'.
Prior to the rejection today (3 August), Hollie said: "We now hope and pray that the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) will look favourably on the application. We will not give up on Archie until the end."
The European Court of Human Rights was the last possible option available to Archie's parents before his life support is switched off.