Critically-ill baby has treatment withdrawn after legal fight – campaign group

Specialists have withdrawn life-support treatment from a critically-ill baby girl who has been at the centre of a legal battle, a campaign group supporting her parents has said.

Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, who are both in their 30s and from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, want specialists to keep treating their eight-month-old daughter Indi Gregory.

But the couple, who are being supported by campaign organisation Christian Concern, have lost fights in the High Court and Court of Appeal in London.

A spokesman for Christian Concern said on Sunday that specialists have withdrawn life support.

He said Indi has been moved from the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, where she was being treated, to a hospice.

In a statement issued through the group, Indi’s father said she is “fighting hard”.

High Court judge Mr Justice Peel had ruled limiting treatment would be lawful, and doing so would be in Indi’s best interests.

Her parents failed to persuade Court of Appeal judges and judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to overturn that treatment decision.

The couple also failed in a bid to transfer Indi to a hospital in Rome.

Mr Justice Peel ruled a move to Italy would not be in Indi’s best interests and Court of Appeal judges backed that decision.

Judges heard Indi, who was born on February 24, has mitochondrial disease – a genetic condition that saps energy.

Specialists said she is dying and the treatment she was receiving causes pain and is futile.

Her parents disagree.

Mr Justice Peel considered evidence at private hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London.

He allowed journalists to attend and said Indi can be identified in reports.

The judge said specialists involved in Indi’s care could not be named – nor could the hospice where she has been moved to.