Even battle hardened lawyers struggled to get their words out
Of all the courtroom dramas the High Courts of Justice have witnessed through the years, few surely can have matched the painful intensity of yesterday’s harrowing climax to the case of the sick baby boy who moved the world.
Connie Yates and Chris Gard had finally come to the most painful conclusion imaginable – that they should, after all, let their boy, Charlie, die. Time, like hope, had finally expired.
The lawyers for all parties had just had their say, as had the judge, Mr Justice francis. All had agreed that nothing more could be done. Even some of these battle-hardened barristers had been struggling to get through their prepared statements in one piece.
So was there anything, the judge asked, that the parents might like to add?
At which point Connie Yates squeezed out of her pew, followed by her partner, and made for the witness box. A court usher had thoughtfully parked a box of tissues on the handrail.
Drawn and drained to the chalky pallor of one who has spent sleepless months at a hospital bedside, the 31-year-old carer was resolute none the less. She had her speech and she was going to make it. Chris Gard stood behind her, stooped and biting his lip.
There followed a mix of deep gratitude, cogent medical argument and burning anger, reaching its crescendo in an unbearably poignant tribute to an ‘absolute warrior’ who ‘has had a greater impact on and touched more people in this world in his 11 months than many people do in a lifetime.’
The what-ifs would haunt them both for the rest of their lives, Con- nie said, but they would always hold their heads up high. ‘We will always know in our hearts that we did the very best for Charlie. And I hope that he is proud of us for fighting his corner.’
How could he not be? This has been a turbulent, historic legal battle which has touched millions, dragged in the White House, the Vatican and Downing Street and raised serious questions about the rights of parents versus the jurisdiction of the courts.
It is one that has generated heated international debate. It has also led to ugly online threats against both Great Ormond Street Hospital, for obstructing plans to fly Charlie for treatment overseas, and against Charlie’s family for refusing to bow to the British medical establishment.
In his conclusions yesterday, the judge deplored such threats and ‘the pitfalls of social media when a case such as this goes viral’.
The authorities were certainly not taking any chances, posting security guards at the doors, an extreme measure more appropriate to the Old Bailey than the family Division of the High Court. Once again, a large contingent of international media had come to witness the latest stage – no one knew it would be the last – in this story.
There was so much interest that the judiciary had moved the proceedings to a court with camera equipment to provide a video link to an adjacent court. When the link wouldn’t work, the usher did her best to cram everyone into the one court, even breaking her own rules to allow standing at the back. We had come prepared for hours if not days of yet more heated arguments. As he opened the proceedings, Grant Armstrong, barrister for Charlie’s parents, was anything but combative. He began by talking of the new treatments which Chris and Connie ‘ had hoped for their offspring’. The word ‘ had’ said it all. It meant they were not being hoped for any more.
Charlie had been clinging to a ‘window’ of hope. ‘That window no longer exists,’ he said softly. ‘ for Charlie, it’s too late. Time has run out. Irreversible muscular damage has been done and the treatment can no longer be a success.’
As news of this grave conclusion was still being tweeted to the wider world, sobbing broke out around the court. The court usher made a beeline for the bench where Chris Gard’s family were sitting, handing them a badly-needed box of tissues.
WHILE Mr Armstrong continued to reflect on a pattern of events ‘worthy of a Greek tragedy’, Connie gently rocked from side to side, clearly wanting to get this over with, to get back to her son’s bedside.
Great Ormond Street’s barrister, Katie Gollop QC, looked subdued. On friday, she had enraged Charlie’s family by revealing the contents of his latest, undisclosed medical reports as ‘very sad reading’, a low blow considering the family had not yet seen them. Wisely, she kept things to a minimum yesterday. ‘We are more sorry than I have words to say,’ she said, and sat down.
Mr Justice francis offered profuse condolences to the parents and, once again, attacked the legal system for the ludicrous anomaly whereby parents qualify for legal aid if a council wants to take their child into care but not if a hospital wants to switch off a child’s lifesupport machine. He has been a model of restraint and compassion throughout these proceedings, even when the family were trying to have him kicked off the case.
However unorthodox it might have been, he said that the parents were welcome to come forward and say whatever they wanted.
After all that they have been through, it would have been no surprise if Chris and Connie had chosen not to come to court at all yesterday. There was no longer anything to fight for. Instead, they wanted to set the record straight and leave no one in any doubt – least of all Charlie – that this had been a just, honourable and entirely rational campaign.
‘This is one of the hardest things that we will ever have to say and we are about to do the hardest thing that we’ll ever have to do,’ Connie began, prompting fresh sniffles around this redeyed court.
It was a magisterial, 2,000-word address, going back over all the arguments without yielding on any of them. ‘This has never been about “parents know best”. We have continuously listened to experts in this field,’ she said. ‘We didn’t keep him alive just because we couldn’t bear to lose him. Charlie had a real chance of getting better. It’s now unfortunately too late for him.’
There was one batsqueak of levity as she thanked her stalwart legal team: ‘They have not asked for a single penny. They won’t even let us buy them a coffee.’
Her closing thoughts, however, were agony. Through the tears, she battled on: ‘We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won’t make his first birthday in just under two weeks’ time. Mummy and Daddy love you so
much Charlie. We always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we couldn’t save you. Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight our beautiful little boy.’
The court could not adjourn fast enough. Outside in the Strand, a group of supporters and young mothers calling themselves ‘Charlie’s Army’ had been waiting beneath blue balloons and placards appealing to the judge. As Chris and Connie appeared, they launched a few forlorn chants of ‘Justice for Charlie’ before falling silent as Chris reiterated the main points of Connie’s statement above the rush-hour traffic.
Over to one side, I met Connie’s father, Matthew, 72. He was just sorry that his wife, Elizabeth, could not be there. As ever, she was keeping Charlie company at his bedside and so had not seen their daughter’s saddest yet finest hour. ‘I didn’t think Connie would get through that,’ he said. ‘I am so proud of her.’ As no doubt her son would be, too.
No parents could have done more. But now a family who had been hoping against hope to see that first birthday party must now start to prepare their farewells.