ON HER BATTLE TO LET HIM DIE
SUNDAY MIRROR
Paul was 22, and marrying in 2000. “I knew he was ‘the one’ straight away,” she smiles. “We wanted children but I thought I was infertile. We went through one round of IVF but I miscarried.
“We were about to start another so I had to do a routine pregnancy test and it was positive. I screamed to Paul ‘I’m pregnant!’ He shouted ‘ You can’t be!’
UNIFORM
“But it had happened naturally and the day Ella was born was one of the happiest of our marriage.”
The days and hours before Paul’s crash are also seared into her memory.
Ella had got her first “big school” uniform and Paul loved watching her proudly model the grey and red outfit.
On July 3 he picked her up from preschool and took her to a park to feed ducks while Lindsey cooked a chicken supper. She said: “He had a shower and came down in his leathers. He always gave us a huge hug and a kiss before work – he knew any shift could be his last. Ella ran away to make him chase her but he caught her and squeezed her and said goodbye. Then we watched him drive off on his beloved bike.”
Lindsey watered the flowers then sat down to check emails – when the doorbell rang. Through frosted glass she saw two hi-vis jackets of his police colleagues.
“I knew straight away it was bad news,” she said – sensing, even then, that it was worse than Paul being dead.”
Officers rushed Lindsey to A & E at Aintree hospital. Paul had severe brain damage, broken his left arm, left leg, collar bone, pelvis, spine and ribs and had lung and liver injuries. He needed numerous operations, months in intensive care, developed pneumonia, sepsis and deadly infections and had seizures and heart problems. For six months Lindsey visited dai ly then sat up late re searching way s of stimulating someone out of a coma.
She said: “I talked to him, played his favourite music, lit candles, brushed different fabrics on his skin. Family and police pals had a rota and read to him.
“He could breathe for himself but when he opened his eyes all I could see was a look of sheer terror.
“If you gripped his hand a reflex would make it grip yours back, and you hoped... but he can’t even do that now.”
But as the months went by Ella was struggling at school and Lindsey began spending more time with her daughter.
Now she sees Paul once a week. He was moved between three different hospitals as experts argued about his prognosis. Lindsey knew he would never recover and would want to die – yet his fate rested with his doctors.
But after winning legal aid she went to court where the Official Solicitor, a government lawyer, represented Paul against his own wife.
Lindsey added: “It was hard having to justify myself, having my motives questioned. They said since Paul might not be aware of himself, he might not be distressed by his life.
“They even suggested he could still be a father to Ella. I wish it could have been avoided. I don’t blame his doctors, t they have to weigh matters of l life and death very carefully. B But now it is over I am glad the d decision to let him die was not h his family’s or his doctors’. An i independent judge decided what is in Paul’s best interests.” Lindsey also told how Ella is now too scared to visit her dad. She said: “She’s terrified to look at him or touch him. She was confused at first – she would see a police car and ask ‘Daddy?’
“But now she knows he isn’t coming home and asks why he hasn’t gone to Heaven yet. She says ‘ When is Daddy going to be a star in the sky’?”
Brave Lindsey hopes she’ll soon be able to answer Ella’s question.
And tell her Daddy is now watching over them forever.
MUM LINDSEY