Thanks for the link to the judgement, @multi21, definitely the most informative thing I’ve read.

It sounds like this has long since stopped being about the poor kid involved. And without any mention of online challenges or even the kid’s browsing history, I guess only an inquest will discover what might have motivated him to hang himself.

I hope the parents find peace.

@revs1972 sorry to hear the issues you had.

Yes question things said to you but how can you say not to trust a medical expert when you trusted the midwife you trusted the consultant. Do you trust some or none or is your trust in Dr Google etc

No offence to GP’s but they are not experts, they are general practitioners who should refer you to the experts . Mrs b is a midwife of 30yrs experience and its quite fair to say an “expert” and is constantly annoyed at the advice given to women and their partners by non “experts”

Don’t get me wrong, I do trust them, just not 100% and would always take a second / third opinion (even if that was from Dr Google) rather than just blindly go along with something.
In the seven weeks we were in hospital with our first child ( who was born 7 weeks prematurely and had to have a bowel operation at 2 days due to a blockage – which coincidently all the doctors , surgeons, consultants we dealt with all said it should have been picked up in the routine scans ), I saw a lot of things. Mostly , amazing people who cared for our son and gave him the best treatment.
However, mixed in with that was a ICU nurse who couldn’t operate the Incubator they were going to place him in after his op. A had to complain about a male nurse who I saw mishandling him at Plymouth. He was removed from his duties whilst we were there. I also had to call 999 whilst in Southampton hospital after my wife started to haemorrhage, because the staff were having a handover and refused to send anyone to help her.
When i see stories on the news about babies and mothers dying (there was a big one recently)
i can see how it happens.

Maybe finally a chance of peace

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-62403993

another +1 to say thanks for posting the link to the judgement. I had the chance to read it properly just now and I am just full of praise (even awe) for the diligence with the judge has reviewed all the evidence and opinions.

I am just full of praise (even awe) for the diligence with the judge has reviewed all the evidence and opinions

I think the thing that impressed me most was the obvious compassion with which they did all that.

Agreed. And I still maintain my sympathy for his parents, but today’s statement from his mum…

“And again our country has failed a 12-year-old child”

… Makes that sympathy hard to keep up. At no point has this country failed her child.

I know….I’m finding it hard to balance the impossible situation they’re in as parents vs the way they (and let’s be honest, their  funders and supporters) are reacting to it.

And those that are targeting the solicitors and barristers representing both the Trust and also Archie’s independent guardian. A pox on them in particular.

I know….I’m finding it hard to balance the impossible situation they’re in as parents vs the way they (and let’s be honest, their funders and supporters) are reacting to it.

I’m the same. I read the judgement (another thank you for posting). I was blown away by the compassion it was written with. I also came away increasingly uncomfortable with my feelings towards the family. Their allegations against he medical staff (like that they deliberately switched the scans and that they were starving him) that needed rebutting and some of the things that they have said in the press – I clearly don’t know for sure but I’m very certain I would not act as they have in the same circumstances.

These tragic cases are thankfully rare, but not that rare. I’m coming to the conclusion that the ones that make the news behaving like this are the outliers, where their underlying gullibility or their plain unpleasantness as a person has been magnified under the pressure of the experience.

Have to agree. What’s happened is absolutely terrible, but his mother seems incapable from moving on from the denial stage of grief. Unfortunately the whole circus is an example of a desire to make what you want to believe become the truth, whilst steadfastly ignoring the facts.

Unfortunately the whole circus is an example of a desire to make what you want to believe become the truth, whilst steadfastly ignoring the facts.

Sadly this seems to be the default approach to life for many people nowadays (Trump, Brexit, climate change etc etc etc).

where their underlying gullibility or their plain unpleasantness as a person has been magnified under the pressure of the experience.

Or perhaps their overwhelming feelings of guilt?

Their allegations against he medical staff

Drifting OT a bit here and not a direct response to your post, but it sparked a question.

Is their any work done looking at any correlation between expectations of perfection from health services and subsequent allegations of negligence?

I think what I mean there, do people have unrealistic expectations? Get a shock, then make allegations. Is there evidence of a trend, is it new, is it changing? And is any evidence itself influenced, or not, by changes in reporting?

Jist got round to reading the judgement last night, what struck me was they identified he coned in April. That should have been game over then! Coning is irreversible and catastrophic, scans in May showed limited/ no blood flow since then!
The legal proceedings from the fundamentalist law group have dragged this poor boy and his family grief on since then. Shocking and inexcusable

I have had to sit in intensive care with my mum before.
My dad had an operation to try to fix a twisted bowel and it went very wrong.
The resulting infection was such that they dropped him into a medically induced coma.
It was tough watching my mum pleading with him to wake up, the glimmers of hope that repeated calling of his name would snap him out of it.
He wad away with fairies on a 2 week morphine trip.
I didn’t or couldn’t tell her that it was just the drugs keeping him unconscious and the machines helping him get better.
Mums insisted that a flutter of an eyelid or tiny tremble of a hand meant he was coming round, even as the morphine drip, drip dripped into the canula.
So i can see the anguish, but its very different with this poor lad. He is brain dead and its just machines giving the impression of life.
His parents are clinging to some very thin bit of hope that each day he will get a tiny bit better and he will be the 1 in a million who prove the doctors wrong.
Its the sound bite statements provided to the media which clearly have not been written by the parents who simply refuse to accept hes long gone. They want someone to blame. Its tragic and heart breaking but i feel its being exasperated and prolonged by the media and associatied news stories.

My dad was lifted from his drug induced coma, came out of icu a
Month post op, into a general ward where he had a heart attack and died.

His Mum now says she wants him to be moved to a hospice she has found that will take him so he can have a “dignified passing”.
His last moments will be very shortly after the life support is withdrawn or as the doctors point out could happen during the transport process.
Not very dignified on a gurney in an elevator or in the back of an ambulance.

Passings for the unconscious are all about the experience of the living. I can see how his current room has profound demons for the parents. The room she has spent the last months of awful sadness and surrounded by staff who’s relationship with is irrevocably broken. It is also a way I guess of taking some sort of control again after their part in this has been found wanting many times by many courts.

So whilst I my feelings towards the family are not altogether positive and the idea of moving him does not seem wise, I can understand the thinking. If the parents had been guided better by third parties (again, how much of the last couple of months is self inflicted and how much have they been manipulated will never be known to outsiders) this could have been ended in so much better a way for them.

I hope they now get some sort of dignified final ending for them and him. If it all ends in the back on an ambulance – not so good.

And then I hope they disappear into obscurity and try to mend. If they become a mouthpiece for some deranged religious or right wing anti expert, anti NHS, anti medical mob then…well, it’ll not end well.

I would be heartbroken to think that any parent just rolled over at the first suggestion of the medical team that it was time to give up.

If doctors did that thenI don’t think we’d be looking at assisted dying laws.

I don’t understand why they want to keep him on life support so that he can have the most natural death, surely that would result from withdrawing life support?

I don’t understand why they want to keep him on life support so that he can have the most natural death, surely that would result from withdrawing life support?

It long ago ceased being about Archie and his best interests, this is now about drawing it out for as long as possible for more court challenges, more appeals and more media. This will be on the “advice” of Christian Legal and whoever else is benefitting from manipulating the mother in this way.

They want a “dignified” hospice death – the hospital are saying he won’t survive the trip to a hospice which is a way for the mother to then claim the hospital aren’t respecting her last wishes and start the ball rolling on compensation – half of which will probably end up with the Christian Legal lawyers.

What is the christian legal folks objective here? Ideological, monetary, promotional?

Seems bizarre that they argue that a massively interventionist process of stopping someone from dying is in any way associated with a natural death!?

I’m assuming they get large donations in from loony Americans and then spend a fraction of it in public displays of “pro-life” legal action to encourage more donations and the grift cycle continues.

The parents are being “supported” by the Cristian Legal Centre, which is funded by US right wing nutjobs.

The CLC have been involved in a lot of shithousery over the last few years, they’re about as “Christian” as I am a free-market Libertarian.

Mrs Justice Theis has forbidden the hospice move on the grounds of ‘what’s best for Archie’ and denied leave to appeal unless they go direct. Hopefully it’s costing the hypocrites a fortune to put that poor woman through the wringer.
I hope that she can find peace once life support is withdrawn. (Anyone doing what has been insisted on in hospital with a pet would rightly be up on animal cruelty charges).

I’m assuming they get large donations in from loony Americans and then spend a fraction of it in public displays of “pro-life” legal action to encourage more donations and the grift cycle continues.

Surely someone must have done an exposé on these groups by now and shown the main perps living in mansions in the US with massive swimming pools and Hummers on the driveway?

Unfortunately the ability to exploit the vulnerable and extract cash from loons is lucrative and has been for at least two millenia.

You have to wonder if there will be police in the room when they remove the life support.
Can’t help but think that the family might do something stupid to the staff

Whilst it’s clear this circus has been funded by some right dubious scum bags I don’t have any sympathy left for the mother either. Its been her choice to go down this path and some of the things she has said are abhorrent, the NHS staff don’t deserve to be put through the wringer like this. Its all been about her, not the boy. I do wonder if there is more to come out in the eventual inquest.

extract cash from loons

These loons being rich religious Americans buying the pro-life shpiel?

Yeah, I started to run out of sympathy when she started talking about the NHS executing her son.

I have read rumours that the papers have stories written ready to rip into the parents, it never ends, lots of stories using them as caring parents, then afterwards tear them down, papers and lawyers are the only folk benefiting in this sorry story.

The people funding this I think have manipulated that his mother & family when they are at their most vulnerable.

Having read a little about them & their founder they sound like proper scumbags & the least Christian people out there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Legal_Centre

It does seem odd to me that the mainstream media reporting of this has not made frequent and consistent reference to the funding/guidance that the family has got throughout. I can’t see why it would be prejudicial or bias in any way. It would not even need to be reported in a way to have inference of an opinion about it (that they are unpleasant nutters). Childhood deaths are tragic and sad, but arguably the most ‘interesting’ or newsworthy element of the story is how and why it has gone on so long and the source of the cash to make that happen.

It does seem odd to me that the mainstream media reporting of this has not made frequent and consistent reference to the funding/guidance

Not really, the current story is the plucky underdog fighting faceless doctors and judges. It will change and they will drop on her, although the funders behind this is probably a bit too complex for your average news reader so she’ll be hung out to dry over this rather than the CLC. I don’t really buy the vulnerable person being taken for a ride, the things she’s said are dangerous, insulting and will have lasting impact on members of the NHS the next time this situation occurs. Your actions have consequences and it’s time a few more people realised this.

Her background is going to make it pretty hard for her to take any high ground.
I think the sympathy will soon run out. Even quicker than her ‘backers’.

Her background is going to make it pretty hard for her to take any high ground.

Thats mostly been hidden away on some obscure forums though.
I feel sorry for the poor staff. One of the families complaints was about all the security staff in the vicinity which made it hard for them.
Last time I had the misfortune to be visiting a dying family member I dont recall seeing any although I assume they were wandering around but didnt feel the need to be hanging around the actual ward all the time. I wonder why in this case there was a different approach?

A different approach because of the area and how the parents come across.
I live a few miles away

It’s now time for the mother to shut up and, when the boy dies, grieve quietly.
Media should remove the oxygen of publicity from the mother and then, on a public interest basis, investigate Christian Concern and other similar organisations – who/what they are, their funding sources, backers, structures, links with other groups.

Thats mostly been hidden away on some obscure forums though.

Hmmm – I searched and found. I’m not going to take as gospel as, well, believing what you read on obscure websites by default is where the trouble starts. But it will be interesting to see where it goes from here. With luck I’ll never know as she will melt back into obscurity.

But agreed with Frank. once the emotion of this poor kid’s sad tale is given some respectful time to pass, a proper ‘outing’ of these groups needs to be carried out publicly to give the general public the full story. This issue is they also were behind Tafida Raqeeb’s case. I’ve no idea what her long term outcome was but it was a case where the court’s intervention got her (on the face of it) successful treatment she was being refused. Clearly very different cases, but arguably justifiably it does make the case against such groups being involved always being a bad thing weaker.

@Convert wow, just wow. I’ve done the same, I didnt think she was a very nice person but if even half of what I found is true she really is an appalling human being as are the toxic group around her.

Yes, a bit of Googling is very interesting. It makes me wonder why the MSM like the BBC are defaulting to a position of implicit sympathy for the family. Well, we know why of course, because the death of a 12 year old kid is a tragic event no matter what the backstory. But I think the media should really deal with the issue of the mother’s behaviour and they are just ignoring it in favour of the ‘grieving parent’ narrative.

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/20183785.archie-battersbee-visited-hospital-southend-mp-anna-firth/

Tell me you’re a Tory MP without saying you’re a Tory MP