At the bedside, US pastor with criminal record

AN EVANGELICAL preacher jailed in the US for picketing an abortion clinic is spearheading the campaign to secure Charlie Gard’s treatment in America.

The Rev Patrick Mahoney led a team of US “right to life” campaigners who flew to the UK last week to drum up support worldwide for the 11-monthold boy.

Mr Mahoney, the pastor in charge of the Church on the Hill in Washington DC and director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said he had met with a senior official in the White House before flying to London. He posted a photograph on Facebook of himself with Charlie’s parents at the boy’s bedside in Great Ormond Street Hospital, claiming the hospital had tried to prevent him from entering the intensive care unit before relenting.

“This continues to show Great Ormond Street Hospital’s disregard for the wishes of Charlie’s parents. First, the hospital denies care, and now they deny prayer,” he wrote on Facebook.

The 63-year-old pastor has been jailed in the US for defying a court order that prohibited him from demonstrating in front of abortion clinics in Houston, Texas.

He was also jailed briefly by Chinese authorities for trying to pray in Tiananmen Square in 2008.

A source previously close to Charlie Gard’s parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, has spoken of their (the source’s) dismay at the apparent hijacking of the campaign and the attack on the hospital.

The source said: “I have no idea how he got in with the parents. He just suddenly turned up last week.”

Mr Mahoney said he and his team, which includes a US lawyer, had been invited to the UK by the family after they enlisted their support to widen the campaign.