Indi Gregory’s death sentence is enforced today

Intransigent to the end, that is to the death of an innocent 8-month-old. Yesterday, the appeal by the family of Indi Gregory, the Anglo-Italian baby girl suffering from a rare mitochondrial pathology and so far being treated at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham, was rejected on all counts. Indi was moved to the hospice in the early afternoon today in an ambulance accompanied by her mother Claire Staniforth. Her father Dean Gregory, arrived in a separate vehicle with Indi’s sister. The procedure to extubate the baby girl was performed shortly after her arrival at the hospice at approximately 2:45pm.

Judges Peter Jackson, Eleanor King and Andrew Moylan, in line with their colleague Robert Peel's initial decision, ordered Indi's extubation, to take place today, Saturday 11 November, - as Christian Concern, the association legally assisting the Gregorys, informs us - in an unspecified hospice by order of the courts. Initially, news had circulated that the deadline for the extubation was next Monday, on the basis of statements, in a dubitative formula, pronounced at the end of the hearing by Judge King. But, this ambiguity has since been resolved, effectively accelerating the timetable for the removal of life support, to an event that could happen at any moment. Extubation should not, however, infer Indi's immediate death, as was clarified in Peel's ruling on 8 November 2023: “The Trust would endeavour to stabilise her after extubation and assess the next step, a process which they think could take a week or so”.

All legal options for further appeal have now been exhausted. Nor is there any news of a follow-up to the Italian government's attempt to have Indi transferred to Italy for treatment. The day before yesterday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had written an urgent letter to the UK's Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Alex Chalk, asking for official cooperation between the two countries, on the basis of the 1996 Hague Convention on the protection of minors and in particular Article 32, to facilitate Indi's transfer to Rome. Here, we recall, the Bambin Gesù paediatric hospital offered to provide specialist care for the baby girl and the Italian government stated its willingness to fund the care. In her letter, the precise contents of which were revealed yesterday, Meloni hoped for an unblocking of the situation "in time for Indi to have access to this possibility in the spirit of cooperation that has always distinguished the two countries".

It is not known whether Chalk has replied to the Italian Prime Minister's letter, but it is certain that the various meritorious steps taken this week by Italy’s executive to try to save Indi have irritated the British judges assessing the case. According to Jackson, King and Moylan, the Italian request based on the Hague Convention, a request on which they did not go into the merits during the hearing, is “totally ill-conceived” and “not in the spirit of the Convention”.

Even with regard to the place of extubation, the first of the three issues addressed in yesterday's hearing, the judges rejected the request of the parents, Claire and Dean Gregory, who, while remaining opposed to the idea of removing Indi's life support, asked at least to be able to extubate her at home, rather than in the hospice, as was finally decided. The Gregorys' legal team, with lawyer Bruno Quintavalle, also objected to the lack of completeness of information that characterised the trial stages, again with regard to extubation, as well as the doctors' refusal to consider the best clinical option for Indi, as would be required by British case law. But even these latter points were rejected by the appeal judges, who relied on the gloomily pessimistic analysis of the medical team treating Indi and therefore concluded that no further time should be allowed because it is contrary to Indi's “best interests” to keep her alive.

During the hearing, which the Daily Compass attended remotely, the judge’s irritation at the appeal was evident, with Jackson, above all, unable to hide his annoyance at Italy's intervention and the Gregorys' attempts to neutralise the decisions made in the UK courts. The judge himself read the final judgement in glacial tones, lamenting the continued “delays” in the extubation that were causing Indi “distress” and he lashed out harshly at the approach used by the Gregorys and their lawyers during the litigation, branding them “manipulative tactics”. At the end of the reading of the judgment, both Justice King and Moylan assented to their colleague with an explicit: “I agree”.

Following the hearing, Dean Gregory said: “Claire and I are again disgusted by another one-sided decision from the judges and the Trust [the health trust that includes Queen's Medical Centre, ed]”. Indi's father therefore on the one hand praised the help offered by the Italian government and on the other lamented the absurd behaviour of the UK authorities, who are preventing the transfer of their baby daughter to Italy. "This feels like the latest kick in the teeth, and we will not give up fighting for our daughter’s chance to live until the end". Two ordinary parents, aware that human life is a gift to be cherished, fighting against a system that is increasingly revealing its Luciferian traits.