Relatives of a 12-year-old boy at the centre of a life-support treatment fight are preparing to launch an appeal bid after a High Court judge ruled that the youngster is dead. Doctors treating Archie Battersbee at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, think the youngster is "brain-stem dead".
They say life-support treatment should end and Archie should be disconnected from a ventilator. Archie's parents, Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee, from Southend, Essex, say the youngster's heart is still beating and want treatment to continue.
Mrs Justice Arbuthnot, based in the Family Division of the High Court in London, ruled on Monday that Archie, who suffered brain damage in an incident at home in April, was dead and doctors could lawfully stop treating him. Relatives said they wanted Court of Appeal judges to consider the case.
