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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Brian Farmer & Lorraine King

Mum loses Supreme Court bid to keep doctors treating daughter, 5, on life support

A mum who wants doctors to keep treating her five-year-old daughter who is on life support has lost her bid to take her fight to the Supreme Court.

Paula Parfitt thinks Pippa Knight, who is in a vegetative state, should leave hospital and wants specialists to stage a homecare trial.

But doctors treating Pippa at the Evelina Children's Hospital in London, disagree and say life-support treatment should end.

Ms Parfitt, who is in her early 40s and from Strood, Kent, had lost fights in the High Court and Court of Appeal and wanted Supreme Court justices to consider the case.

She first had to get permission to stage a challenge to the appeal judges' ruling.

Ms Parfitt with her five-year-old daughter Pippa (PA)

A spokeswoman for the court said on Friday that a panel of three justices had refused to give Ms Parfitt permission to mount a Supreme Court challenge after considering a written application.

Campaign group the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (Spuc) has paid for lawyers to represent Ms Parfitt and was willing to fund a Supreme Court challenge.

Pippa has been diagnosed with acute necrotising encephalopathy (PA)
Ms Parfitt wanted Supreme Court justices to consider the case (PA)

Spuc's deputy chief executive, John Deighan, said Ms Parfitt was "understandably devastated" by the Supreme Court decision.

Earlier this year High Court Mr Justice Poole ruled against Ms Parfitt earlier this year deciding that treatment could lawfully end and Pippa should be allowed to die.

The five-year-old's dad is dead (PA)
Doctors say Pippa should be allowed to die (PA)

Three appeal judges had upheld Mr Justice Poole's decision after a Court of Appeal hearing.

Mr Justice Poole heard evidence at a trial in the Family Division of the High Court in London in December, and delivered a ruling in January.

The judge, who heard that Pippa was unable to be saved, described the case as "heart-rending".

Pippa was born in April 2015, and is close to her sixth birthday, and initially developed normally, but in December 2016 she became unwell and began to suffer seizures, the judge heard.

Doctors had diagnosed acute necrotising encephalopathy.

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