Archie Battersbee case
| Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee -v- Barts Health NHS Trust and another | |
|---|---|
| Court | High Court of Justice (Family Division) |
| Decided | 1 August 2022 (Court of Appeal) |
| Citation | "Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee -v- Barts Health NHS Trust and another". Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service. 2 August 2022. |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting | Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, Lady Justice King and Lord Justice Moylan |
Hollie Dance and Paul Battersbee vs Barts Health NHS Trust and another was a legal case in the United Kingdom that was the subject of several court hearings between April and August 2022. The case centred around whether or not to withdraw the life support of Archie Battersbee a 12-year-old boy who was found unconscious and subsequently considered to have suffered brainstem death.
The courts ruled in favour of Barts Health NHS Trust, and against his parents, and allowed his life support to be withdrawn. Battersbee died on 6 August 2022 shortly after his life support was ended, four months after he was first found unconscious. His cause of death was later ruled to be "catastrophic hypoxic ischemic brain injury, secondary to strangulation" as a result of an accident due to a failed prank or experiment. Early claims of a link to the TikTok "blackout challenge" were later dismissed due to a lack of evidence.