A critically ill baby girl has been removed from life support after judges ruled that she should be allowed to die, a campaign group supporting her parents has said.
Eight-month-old Indi Gregory has an incurable mitochondrial condition and medics say they can do no more for her.
Her parents, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, wanted specialists to keep treating her but have lost fights in the high court and court of appeal in London.
The infant, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, was last week granted emergency Italian citizenship by the country’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as part of an extraordinary last-minute attempt to have her flown to Rome for treatment.
However, judges said a move to Italy was not in Indi’s best interests and called an intervention by Italian consular officials “wholly misconceived”.
On Friday, three appeal court judges ruled that life support treatment could only be withdrawn in a hospital or hospice, not at the family home.
The not-for-profit organisation Christian Concern, which is supporting the family, said on Sunday that specialists had withdrawn life support.
It 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”.
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern’s sister organisation, the Christian Legal Centre, said the parents were “by the side of their precious daughter” on Sunday.
It came after Pope Francis said he was praying for Indi’s family in a statement released by the Vatican on Saturday. It said the pope “embraces the family of little Indi Gregory, her father and mother, prays for them and for her, and turns his thoughts to all the children around the world in these same hours who are living in pain or risking their lives because of disease and war”.
Indi’s case is the latest high-profile end-of-life hearing to reach the Royal Courts of Justice, following similarly fraught battles over the treatment of children including Archie Battersbee, Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans, Isaiah Haastrup, Tafida Raqeeb and Alta Fixsler.
Indi was born on 24 February with mitochondrial disease, a genetic condition that the NHS says is incurable.
Specialists from the Queen’s Medical Centre said she was dying and that the treatment she was receiving causes pain and was futile. Her parents disagreed.
A high court judge, Mr Justice Peel, had ruled that limiting treatment would be lawful and that doing so would be in Indi’s best interests.
Her parents failed to persuade judges at the court of appeal and at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, France, to overturn that decision.
Last Monday, Indi was granted emergency Italian citizenship less than an hour before medical staff were due to withdraw life support treatment.
The appeal court judge, Lord Justice Peter Jackson, on Friday expressed “profound concern” about aspects of the case brought by the Christian Legal Centre on behalf of Indi’s parents.
He said doctors caring for Indi and 12 other critically ill infants had been put in an “extremely challenging” due to the “manipulative litigation tactics” which he suggested were preventing them for treating highly vulnerable patients.
