Ms Justice Arbuthnot recently ruled that doctors could legally stop treating Archie Battersbee after examining the evidence in a family’s trial at the High Court in London. Archie’s family members want the appellate judges to hear the case and are expected to launch an appeal on Monday. A spokesman for the Archie’s Christian Legal Center campaign organization told reporters that relatives would use a subsequent Supreme Court hearing to ask Arbuthnot to give them the green light to appeal. Relatives must prove that they have a questionable case before a full appeal can be heard. Doctors treating Archie at Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, told Arbuthnot they believed the young man was “brain dead”. They said the treatment should end and Archie should be disconnected from a ventilator. Archie’s parents, Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee, from Southend-on-Sea in Essex, say their son’s heart is still beating and they want the treatment to continue. Lawyers representing the government trust of the Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust, asked Arbuthnot to decide what was in Archie’s best interest. The judge heard that Archie suffered a brain injury in a home incident in April. Dance said she found him unconscious with a ligament over his head on April 7 and thought he might be involved in an online challenge. The boy has not regained consciousness. In an interview with the Guardian, Dance said the last two months had been “torture”, but the family had appealed and believed the judge had made “several mistakes” in the case. She had seen small signs that her son’s health was improving. “A lot more should be given to Archie,” he said. “There are patients with Covid who stay six months to a year and are on respirators fighting for their lives. “Archie was eight very young weeks and we were in and out of court.” Dance said the impact on the family from her son’s accident was “emotionally exhausting” and that she and Archie’s brothers had a hard time seeing the talented gymnast lying down.
