Mr Justice McKendrick has ruled that providing clinically assisted nutrition and hydration to sustain the life of a 28-year-old man suffering from a prolonged disorder of consciousness is contrary to his best interests and should cease.
The judgment, released today following a 4-day trial last week, overrules the unanimous view of the young man’s family and all his treating clinicians that the life-sustaining treatment should continue, agreed at a ‘best interests meeting’ in March.
The case is subject to draconian reporting restrictions under the so-called Transparency Order, which Mr Justice McKendrick has ordered to remain in force until the death of the young man, known only as FHR.
In her prolonged legal battle to save her son’s life, FHR’s mother, anonymised as FN, is supported by the Christian Legal Centre.
FHR suffered a catastrophic brain injury in 2020. After nearly five years of living at home under the care of his mother, the Court of Protection in 2025 ordered his forcible removal to a care home, supposedly temporarily for an assessment of his neurological condition. However, he was never returned home and the care home banned FHR’s mother from visiting him for some 16 months.
The gagging order was then issued by the Court in response to a viral video released by FHR’s mother on social media in April 2025 telling her son’s story. Last month, Mr Justice McKendrick refused the mother’s application to lift the Transparency Order to enable proper coverage of the trial, where FHR’s family resisted the application by the NHS North East London Integrated Care Board to end their son’s life.
Since being moved to the care home in April 2025, FHR’s health rapidly deteriorated, requiring as many as five emergency hospital admissions for a number of weeks, with infections and at time sepsis. The family argued that if FHR is returned home, his condition and his quality of life were likely to improve again.
Having examined FHR and his medical records, an eminent expert in neurorehabilitation and prolonged disorders of consciousness, Dr Judith Allanson, told the Court in her evidence last week that he was not suffering from pain or distress and there was a chance of recovery of brain function. Dr Allanson concluded that despite being drowsy from sedative drugs, FHR had some conscious awareness – she saw him smile in response to his father talking to him about football, the recent World Cup, and mentioned his favourite team, Arsenal.
On another occasion, a different expert observed an “emotional response” to his father’s conversation, where FHR shed tears in after his father talking to him about God and prayed with him. Dr Allanson recommended a careful review of FHR’s sedative medications and whether he needs a tracheostomy before his level of awareness could be properly assessed.
The Court-appointed expert, rehabilitation consultant Ajoy Nair, agreed that a review of tracheostomy “should be attempted if at all possible” but argued that “spending more time, effort and resources, and tinkering with his medications when he has a catastrophic brain injury are meaningless”.
Dr Nair recommended to withdraw nutrition and hydration and explained that would mean that FHR would die within 1-3 weeks: “Patients in this category will develop dehydration and multiorgan failure. Renal failure, acidosis, uraemia, and other metabolic and electrolyte disturbances that will ultimately end in cardiorespiratory arrest”.
In today’s judgment, Mr Justice McKendrick agreed with Dr Nair’s recommendations. He concluded that sustaining FHR’s life with food and fluids “consigns FHR to an existence of distress with such limited consciousness and communication that his life is devoid of comfort or pleasure. There is little prospect of that ever changing.” He rejected the family’s evidence as unreliable on the grounds that their “love has the power to impair our objectivity”.
Responding to the judgment in a statement released through her solicitors, FN said:
“I do not want to prolong my son’s life artificially, but it is unacceptable to bring about his death in the way the system has done. Even murderers and rapists do not get death sentences from the court, but my son now has it – for no other crime than being severely disabled.
“All I wanted was for my kid to be allowed to live naturally and to die naturally.
“The system has treated my son with unbelievable cruelty. My son was stable and happy at home, he was surrounded by love from his family, and I believe his condition was gradually improving. The system then abducted him, locked him up, isolated him from his family, ruined his physical health, drugged him up with sedatives, and has now obtained a court order to starve him to death.
“I believe that ending his life was always their agenda and the only thing standing between death and my son was the love and protection of his family – so that was brutally removed by force.
“It is probably too late now to save my son, but if so, the system which has done this to him should be held to account.”