The legal battle to keep Archie Battersbee’s life support on

Archie Battersbee’s life support has not yet been withdrawn after his family launched a High Court bid to move him to a hospice.

The 12-year-old was found unconscious with a “ligature over his head” on 7 April at his home in Southend in Essex, reported The Guardian. His mother has said that she believes her son, who she described as a “very talented gymnast”, was injured while doing an online challenge.

Last night, his parents were given a 9am deadline to file the High Court request or face his treatment being stopped at 11am. The family’s application aims to get Archie transferred to a hospice to die “with dignity” rather than in a hospital, noted Sky News.

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Relatives insist they should be allowed to choose where he takes “his last moments” after his mother, Hollie Dance, conceded that the legal battle to postpone the withdrawal of her son’s life support is at “the end” after the European Court of Human Rights refused an application to delay changes to his treatment.

In a statement, Dance said: “If they refuse permission for us to take him to a hospice and for him to receive palliative oxygen it will simply be inhumane and nothing about Archie’s ‘dignity’”.

Right to appeal

In June, a High Court judge agreed with doctors at the Royal London Hospital that Archie was “brain-stem dead” and that his life-support treatment should end. But in a later hearing, “the same judge, Mrs Justice Arbuthnot, granted Archie’s parents permission to take the case to the Court of Appeal”, reported the BBC.

Justice Arbuthnot initially ruled that Archie died “at noon on May 31 2022”, based on MRI scans, and gave Barts Health NHS Trust permission to disconnect him from a ventilator.

The case has gone back and forth between the Court of Appeal and High Court, with the Supreme Court backing judges in the decision to turn off his life support. The European Court of Human Rights also refused an application from the family for a delay in turning it off.

‘Quite a few mistakes’

Archie’s mother told The Guardian in June that the previous two months had been “torture” but that she would continue fighting to keep her son on life support. Dance reportedly said the family believed the judge made “quite a few mistakes” in the case and argued that Archie should be given “a lot longer” to heal.

“His heart is still beating and we want treatment to continue. My son hasn’t been given enough time and there have been miracles where people have come back from brain injuries,” Dance said.

She added that “there are Covid patients who get six months to a year” on ventilators, while “Archie has had eight very short weeks”.

'Glimmer of hope’

Dance told The Mirror that she had seen several signs that her son could be improving, including reacting to “music and smell”.

“His blood pressure went up, so we put on a deep-breathing meditation recording and put lavender oil under his nose and within ten minutes his blood pressure dropped to normal levels,” she said.

“It’s a glimmer of hope. He’s in there and he’s going to wake up, he just needs time.”

Dance also claimed that Archie had squeezed her hand. She told BBC Breakfast that “he’s in there, physically, for whatever reason, whether it’s locked-in syndrome, whether he’s paralysed... I don’t know, but I feel he’s in there”.

Next move

The family is waiting to hear the outcome from the High Court on whether they can take Archie to a hospice, as doctors have warned there is a “significant risk” in moving him.