Parents in fury after court told of Charlie’s ‘very sad’ brain scan
CHARLIE Gard’s mother shrieked in anguish yesterday as she was told in court that her desperately ill baby’s latest scan results were ‘very sad’.
Connie Yates ran from the courtroom sobbing after Great Ormond Street Hospital’s lawyer gave the bleak assessment on results the 11-month-old’s parents were yet to hear.
She cried: ‘That’s not how we are supposed to read it,’ while furious father Chris Gard branded the hospital’s QC ‘evil’ for blurting out the MRI scan report.
Charlie has had two MRI scans in the past week – one on his brain on Sunday and another on his body on Thursday. His parents were present at both.
Then yesterday a report from Great Ormond Street doctors arrived moments before 2pm when the High Court resumed its hearing on Charlie’s fate.
His parents had not had a chance to read it before Katie Gollop QC, barrister for the hospital, told Mr Justice Francis: ‘The MRI report has come through. It makes for very sad reading.’
After Charlie’s mother ran from the courtroom, the judge said: ‘I know it is very difficult for the parents. It is unfortunate that Miss Yates had to hear what she heard.’
Mr Justice Francis must decide if Charlie should be allowed experimental therapy in the US for his rare form of mitochondrial depletion syndrome, or if, as the hospital says, he is beyond hope and should be allowed to ‘die with dignity’.
This week Charlie has also had an EEG scan – monitoring brain activity – to assist the judge.
Grant Armstrong, for Charlie’s family, protested at the hospital telling the court of the scan results, which he said was medical information that should not have been put Gollopin said:the public‘I don’t domain.want to makeMiss a bad situation worse, but it seems to me all the medical evidence in this case is sad. What I should possibly have said is that it is of a piece with the depletive condition that Charlie suffers.’
Miss Yates, 31, by now back in the courtroom, shouted: ‘ We haven’t read it ourselves.’ And Mr Gard shouted: ‘We shouldn’t have to deal with this s***,’ before the couple stormed out. Miss Gollop told the court: ‘I am very sorry.
‘I didn’t mean to cause upset and am very sorry if I used an adjective out of turn.’
Earlier Mr Armstrong had warned that the parents ‘do not and cannot’ trust Great Ormond Street doctors to interpret the scan results, and would seek independent assessment of the report.
He told the court: ‘From the par- ents’ perspective, Charlie should have been treated in January. The suggestion has been made that this is a sad picture, and we say Charlie was, then, relatively normal.’ Miss Yates and Mr Gard, 32, of Bedfont, in South West London, left court looking distressed. They are furious because when they first began fighting for Charlie to have the experimental therapy, he was not brain-damaged, according to a family source.
‘The sad fact is the scans taken before the court hearing in April did not show irreversible brain damage. This is why the parents fought so hard. They should have been trusted,’ the source said.
‘If anyone thinks the parents were deluded, and simply could not accept the diagnosis, they are wrong. Charlie was not a hopeless case. There was no brain damage. He should have been treated.
‘As the court heard, he was a relatively normal little boy.’
New York doctor Dr Michio Hirano, who flew to the UK to assess Charlie, argued earlier this week that his experimental drugs still had a chance of helping the boy, whose condition affects his muscles, brain and organs. He is due to give further evidence to the High Court on Monday via video link from the US, along with a doctor from the Pope’s hospital in Rome, who also thinks there is still a chance for Charlie. Mr Justice Francis has set aside Monday and Tuesday to hear any ‘new’ evidence in the case before ruling on whether doctors should remove the breathing tube that is keeping the baby alive. The court heard yesterday that the parent of another UK child with the same rare ‘RRM2B’ strain of the disease as Charlie has come forward with evidence to help him. Their child has apparently been offered the experimental treatment being denied to Charlie. Mr Armstrong told the judge there would be ‘a witness who was offered the potential of this treatment, in this country, in relation to RRM2B – another patient with another child’.
‘He was not a hopeless case’