Archie Battersbee's life support will be turned off after his family lost their final bid to keep him alive in a fresh legal battle today. The family of the schoolboy learned the fate of their son during a last-minute Court of Appeal meeting this afternoon.
The Court of Appeal will only grant a short stay, or delay, until 12 o'clock tomorrow. After that, his ventilator can be switched off by staff at The Royal London Hospital.
The boy, 12, has been in a coma since April after he suffered a catastrophic brain injury, the Mirror reports. Doctors treating Archie at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, East London, said he is brain-stem dead and say continued life-support treatment is not in his best interests.
