Charlie Gard’s parents end legal battle for their baby’s treatment

Chris Gard and Connie Yates have announced that they are ending their legal battle.

Charlie Gard’s parents have ended their five-month legal battle fighting for treatment for their critically ill baby. The parents say it is now too late for the experimental US treatment to work and have announced their decision before the case continued to be disputed in the high court. The legal battle with Great Ormond Street Hospital has attracted huge media attention after the hospital argued for Charlie’s life support to be turned off. Charlie’s parents’ lawyers say the long-running legal battle means that “it was no longer in Charlie’s interests” to keep him on a ventilator. Mother, Connie Yates, said of the couple’s decision to take legal action: “We only wanted to give him a chance of life,” and said the proceedings had resulted in a “whole lot of time being wasted”.

A post shared by Save Charlie Gard (@savecharliegard) on Jul 10, 2017 at 2:48pm PDT

The family’s legal representation told the high court:

“For Charlie, it’s too late, time has run out, the irreversible muscular damage has been done and the treatment can no longer be a success. “Charlie has waited patiently for treatment. Due to delay, that window of opportunity has been lost.”

The decision to take Charlie off a ventilator was made after he was assessed by Dr Michia Hirano, a US professor of neurology, who concluded that the treatment was no longer an option for the baby.