After a four-day trial, Justice John McKendrick ruled at the Court of Protection in London on Wednesday, Aug. 26, that providing clinically assisted nutrition and hydration to sustain the man’s life is contrary to his best interests and should cease, according to advocacy group Christian Concern.
Christian Concern said the judgment overrides the unanimous view of the young man’s family and his treating clinicians, who agreed at a March “best interests” meeting that life-sustaining treatment should continue.
The case is subject to strict reporting restrictions under a court-issued Transparency Order that remains in effect until the man’s death. Under the order, the patient is identified only as “FHR” and his mother, who is supported by the Christian Legal Centre, as “FN.”
“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,” FN said in a statement provided by Christian Concern.
“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,” she added. “All I wanted was for my kid to be allowed to live naturally and to die naturally.”
FHR suffered a serious brain injury in 2020, and his mother cared for him at home for nearly five years. In April 2025, the Court of Protection ordered his temporary removal to a care facility for a neurological assessment, according to Christian Concern.
FHR never returned home, and Christian Concern said the care facility barred his mother from visiting him for 16 months over alleged “challenging behavior” after she disagreed with staff about his care.
After FHR was moved to the facility, his mother said she was forced to call an ambulance herself when staff dismissed a sharp drop in his oxygen levels. He was hospitalized with aspiration pneumonia. Following his return to the facility, Christian Concern said administrators barred the family from visiting, prompting the mother to post a video online detailing her son’s story. The video led the Court of Protection to issue the reporting restrictions.
FHR’s physical health deteriorated rapidly after the move, according to Christian Concern, leading to five emergency hospital admissions for infections and sepsis. The family argued that returning FHR home would improve his health and quality of life.
Last month, McKendrick denied the mother’s application to lift the Transparency Order, which she sought so the trial could be publicly reported while the family opposed an application by NHS North East London Integrated Care Board to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from her son.
The mother accused health care authorities and the court system of acting 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,” she said. “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.”
Dr. Judith Allanson, a neurorehabilitation expert specializing in consciousness disorders, examined FHR and testified that he experienced no pain or distress and that there remained a possibility he could regain some brain function.
Christian Concern said Allanson observed signs of conscious awareness despite FHR being drowsy from sedatives, including smiling when his father talked to him about soccer, the recent World Cup and his favorite team, Arsenal.
The organization said another court expert observed FHR showing an “emotional response” and shedding tears as his father spoke about God and prayed with him.
Allanson recommended reviewing FHR’s sedative medications and considering a tracheostomy before making a final assessment of his level of awareness.
Rehabilitation consultant Ajoy Nair, appointed by the court, agreed that a tracheostomy review should be attempted if possible but argued that “spending more time, effort and resources, and tinkering with his medications when he has a catastrophic brain injury are meaningless.”
Nair recommended withdrawing nutrition and hydration, saying FHR would likely die within one to three weeks.
“Patients in this category will develop dehydration and multiorgan failure,” Nair said, as quoted by Christian Concern. “Renal failure, acidosis, uremia, and other metabolic and electrolyte disturbances that will ultimately end in cardiorespiratory arrest.”
McKendrick agreed with Nair’s recommendation, concluding that keeping FHR alive “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.”
McKendrick rejected the family’s testimony about FHR’s awareness, saying that “love has the power to impair our objectivity.”
