Judge who inspired The Children Act tells of harrowing life-or-death transfusion ruling
IT’S the film that has had cinemagoers reaching for a tissue. In a deeply moving performance by Emma Thompson, a judge makes a life-or-death ruling on critically ill child whose parents have refused a blood transfusion because of their religious beliefs.
Now the High Court judge who inspired the film, based on the best-selling Ian McEwan novel, has spoken of what it was like to preside over such a harrowing case.
Sir Alan Ward ruled that an emer- gency blood transfusion should be given to a 15-year-old boy with leukaemia, despite his and his parents’ objections as they were Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The Children Act follows family court judge Fiona Maye, played by Thompson. Her case involves Adam, a Jehovah’s Witness nearing his 18th birthday who refuses life-saving treatment.
A dramatic decision to visit the boy in hospital before passing judgment may sound like a creative flourish, but it mirrored the actions of Sir Alan in 1993. The former Court of Appeal judge said: “My boy was younger, he was not quite 16. He was taken ill on the terraces of Tottenham on a Saturday afternoon, diagnosed with very aggressive leukaemia and was prescribed, a very strong chemotherapy treatment which was succeeding in killing a lot of the cancer but was killing a lot of good bits in the blood as well. He needed the transfusion, which was refused because his parents were practising and devout Jehovah’s Witness and so was he.
“I felt it was wrong to decide as crucial a case as that without seeing him.”
In his ruling, the judge acknowledged the boy (referred to in court as “A”) was prepared to die for his faith, but concluded: “The welfare of A, when viewed objectively, compels me to only one conclusion... the hospital should be at liberty to treat him.”
Almost 20 years later, the case was again brought to his attention while he was serving as a Court of Appeal judge.
He learnt the boy had relapsed in his twenties, but was this time old enough to refuse the blood transfusion – a decision which cost him his life.
“This was a blow to the solar-plexus,” he said. “It was that fact that inspired Ian to write about the effects this had, certainly on me as a judge. You very seldom know what is happening to the children whose lives you deal with.”