Parents in legal fight to allow them to name doctors who treated their late children
Parents of two children who were in end-of-life cases have called on the UK’s highest court to allow them to name the doctors involved.
Six-year-old Zainab Abbasi and 12-month-old Isaiah Haastrup were at the centre of life-support treatment disputes before their deaths in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
Both families say they disagreed with decisions made by doctors at the time, but court orders have prevented them from naming the doctors in the childrens’ care indefinitely.
The parents gathered on Monday at the Supreme Court in London as five judges consider allowing the names to be made public.
Speaking outside court about the disputes, Zainab’s mother Aliya Abbassi said: “Day after day, it was like a battle with them. In any profession, you should be accountable for what you do.”
Mrs Abbasi said the death of her daughter, followed by a fight for transparency, has taken a toll on family life.
She said: “I get heart palpitations, five years on. It’s broken us… there is something grossly unnatural about losing your child.”
Last year, Zainab and Isaiah’s parents won a Court of Appeal fight to have the clinicians named.
However, the NHS trusts involved, in Newcastle and London, are now challenging the decision at the Supreme Court.
Zainab was born with a rare genetic illness which the family did not know about until she was three years old.
Zainab Abbasi was born with a rare genetic illness
In July 2019, the six-year-old’s health rapidly deteriorated and she was admitted to hospital, struggling to breathe and was placed on a life support machine.
The local NHS trust applied to the High Court for permission to take Zainab off the ventilator, but in mid-September, just three days before the hearing was due to start, she died.
Isaiah suffered brain damage during his birth and was left severely disabled. A judge gave doctors permission to provide only palliative care – against the wishes of his father Lanre Haastrup and mother Takesha Thomas.
Isaiah died aged one-year-old in March 2018 and hospital bosses later apologised, saying improvements had been made to maternity services.
Isaiah Haastrup with his aunt Dahlia Thomas. Pic: PA
Mr Haastrup said on Monday he hoped that after last year’s Court of Appeal ruling he would finally be able to share Isaiah story and process his death. But that has not been the case.
“You don’t grieve when you’re fighting. You grieve afterwards don’t you? I think I am going to start grieving after the Supreme Court judgment,” said Mr Haastrup.
‘My story is not complete’
He also said: “I want to tell my story, my story is not complete when the characters are not named.”
Mr Haastrup said he could understand “at that time” why the reporting restriction was made but said it was now “academic”.
“There’s no point of having it in place anymore,” he said, adding that his son was a “fighter”.
In a ruling last year, three Court of Appeal judges said the rights of the parents to “tell their story” outweighed the privacy rights of the clinicians and staff that remained “long after” the court orders were made.
But Gavin Millar KC, for Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said the Court of Appeal’s decision “contains a number of clear and obvious missteps”.
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In a statement, the Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which was involved in Zainab’s case, said: “We understand this has been an incredibly difficult time for the family and we extend our condolences to them.
“Our first priority is always to act in the best interests of our patients, and the entire clinical team involved in Zainab’s care did their best to support her and her family.
“It’s important to emphasise that there have been no findings of fault against any member of staff involved. As an employer, we have a duty to protect the wellbeing and safety of our clinical teams who work tirelessly to support their patients.”
Meanwhile, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which was involved in Isaiah’s case, said in a statement: “Our sympathies continue to be with Isaiah’s family, and we have previously apologised for the standard of care they received at King’s.
“However, we are also committed to looking after the wellbeing of our staff, and protecting their ability to deliver safe and effective care for patients.”
UK
Use of drones to fly weapons into prisons has become a ‘threat to national security’, watchdog warns
The use of drones to fly drugs and weapons into UK prisons needs to be tackled “urgently” because it has become a threat to “national security”, the chief inspector of prisons has said.
Charlie Taylor added that police and the prison service had in effect “ceded the airspace” around HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin to organised crime gangs who are using the gadgets to deliver contraband to inmates.
The two high security prisons hold some of the most dangerous men in the country, including terrorists and organised crime bosses.
Mr Taylor’s warning comes after inspections of HMP Manchester, based in the city centre, and HMP Long Lartin, in Evesham, Worcestershire, found both prisons had “thriving illicit economies” of drugs, mobile phones and weapons.
Inspectors also found that basic security measures such as protective netting and CCTV had fallen into disrepair.
Some inmates at HMP Manchester, a category B jail which holds a small number of category A prisoners, had burned holes in windows so that they could receive regular deliveries by drone, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons watchdog said as it published the findings of the inspections.
It added that many of the drones had “increasingly large payloads” which “had the potential to lead to serious disruption and even escape”.
Mr Taylor said: “It is highly alarming that the police and prison service have, in effect ceded the airspace above two high-security prisons to organised crime gangs which are able to deliver contraband to jails holding extremely dangerous prisoners including some who have been designated as high-risk category A.
“The safety of staff, prisoners and ultimately that of the public, is seriously compromised by the failure to tackle what has become a threat to national security.
“The prison service, the police and other security services must urgently confront organised gang activity and reduce the supply of drugs and other illicit items which so clearly undermine every aspect of prison life.”
The latest warning comes months after an inmate at high-security HMP Garth in Lancashire told inspectors the prison was like an “airport” because there were so many drones flying in drugs.
Inspectors found prisoners had been using the elements from their kettles to burn holes in their “inadequately protected” Perspex windows to allow the “entry of drones laden with contraband”.
Prisoners burned holes in their windows at HMP Garth. Pic: HM Inspectorate of Prisons
The inspections at HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin, which took place across September and October 2024, also revealed other serious concerns around safety and security at both sites.
Mr Taylor felt the situation was so bad at HMP Manchester that he issued an urgent notification for improvement to the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
At Manchester, 39% of prisoners tested positive in mandatory drug tests, while at Long Lartin, 50% of those who responded to the watchdog’s survey said it was easy to get drugs and alcohol.
Violence and self-harm at both prisons was also found to have increased, which the watchdog said was partly driven by drugs and the accompanying debt prisoners found themselves in.
Meanwhile there had been six “self-inflicted deaths” at Manchester since the watchdog’s last inspection in 2021, with a seventh taking place after the most recent visit.
It is now one of the most violent prisons in the country, with a high number of serious assaults against prisoners and staff.
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Many officers “lacked confidence, were demoralised, and were struggling to manage experienced prisoners who were serving long sentences for serious crimes”, the watchdog said.
Manchester was also found to have a chronic rodent infestation, while there was widespread dirt, damp and litter at both sites.
Prisoners at Manchester were also found to have used torn-up foam from mattresses and pillows to keep out the cold.
Inspectors found 38% of prisoners there were locked up during the working day and poor attendance at education and work was further fuelling the boredom, drug-taking, self-harm and violence.
At Long Lartin, which houses both category A and B prisoners, a continued lack of in-cell toilets for many prisoners led them to use buckets and throw bags of excrement out of the windows, many of which were not cleared up, the watchdog said.
The Ministry of Justice said in a statement: “This government inherited prisons in crisis – overcrowded, with drugs and violence rife.
“We are gripping the situation by investing in prison maintenance and security, working with the police and others to tackle serious organised crime, and building more prison places to lock up dangerous criminals.”
Reform UK has grown in support to within one percentage point of Labour according to a new poll for Sky News by YouGov which suggests Britain has entered a new era of three-way party politics.
Sir Keir Starmer looks set to spend the parliament locked in a fight with two right-wing parties after Labour support dropped sharply in the first YouGov poll since the general election.
The poll shows the Tories have now been pushed into third place – two months after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader.
The data collected over the weekend puts Labour on 26%, Reform UK on 25%, Conservatives on 22%, Liberal Democrats on 14% and Greens on 8%.
This is a huge switch from the general election, when Labour was on 35%, Conservatives on 24%, Reform UK on 15%, Lib Dem on 13% and Greens on 7%.
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This is the first of YouGov’s weekly voting intention polls for Sky News, shared with The Times.
It reflects a drop in satisfaction with the government, a rise in support for Reform UK, and shows how the Labour vote has split in all directions since the election.
Labour has retained 54% of their vote at the general election – 7% have gone to the Lib Dems, 6% to the Green Party, 5% to Reform UK, 4% to the Tories – while 23% of those polled did not say, did not know or would not vote.
Reform UK’s vote has grown since the general election at the expense of all other parties, with 16% of voters who backed the Tories at the ballot last year now saying they’d support Reform.
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The judgement on Sir Keir’s first six months in office is damning, however.
Some 10% say the government has been successful while 60% say unsuccessful.
Older voters have turned away from Labour. Just 14% of over 65s would now vote Labour, down from 22% around the time of the election.
However, there are signs the Tory party remains a toxic brand. Reform UK are the least unpopular party, with a net favourability rating of -32, Labour a touch worse on -34 and the Tories down on -45.
YouGov interviewed 2,279 voters in Great Britain on Sunday 12 January and Monday 13 January.
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