A comment made by the judge at Thursday’s highly emotional U.K. court hearing over Charlie Gard, a terminally ill British baby at the center of a legal battle between his parents and a hospital where doctors recently ordered that he be taken off life support, led Charlie’s parents to storm out of the room.
Chris Gard and Connie Yates reportedly left the courtroom after Justice Nicholas Francis said two hours into Thursday’s hearing that Gard and Yates had said they didn’t want to prolong Charlie’s life in his present state unless there was hope of improvement.
Yates reportedly immediately spoke out, proclaiming, “I never said that!” before the judge clarified that one of them had reportedly said as much; both she and Gard responded by walking out. They later returned to the courtroom alongside their lawyer after the judge issued a short lunch break, CNN reported.
Francis also made it clear during the proceedings that it’s not likely the hearing will conclude on Thursday. One thing is clear, though: Gard and Yates aren’t giving up, with the family releasing a statement on Thursday morning.
“We are continuing to spend every moment working around the clock to save our dear baby Charlie,” the statement read. “We’ve been requesting this specialized treatment since November, and never asked the hospital, the courts, or anyone for anything except for the permission to go.”
It continued, “We’ve raised over £1.3 million, and have had invitations from specialized doctors in the US and Italy. They’ve offered their groundbreaking treatment to us, and are confident that they can help Charlie. We will continue to make the case for us to seek treatment for Charlie with doctors that are actually specialized in mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, and we hope that the judge and the courts will finally rule in favor of us seeking treatment elsewhere.”
As Faithwire previously reported, Gard and Yates, have fought every legal decision to take their son off life support, and have raised nearly $2 million to put toward experimental treatment, though doctors at England’s Great Ormond Street Hospital refuse to grant them the right to do so.
Other hospitals in the U.S. and beyond have agreed to take Charlie in, as the tragic legal battle continues to forge on.