Indi Gregory: Parents given more time to secure legal help

Indi Gregory was born with mitochondrial disease

The parents of a seven-month-old girl at the centre of a life support treatment battle have been given more time to secure legal representation.

Indi Gregory has mitochondrial disease and is being cared for at the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.

The hospital said it could do no more for her and has applied to the High Court to end her treatment.

A hearing to determine what was in Indi's best interests has been adjourned until next month.

Indi's parents, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, want her treatment to continue.

Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth said she was responsive to them and had deteriorated due to a treatable infection.

Neither parent attended the hearing at the High Court in London on Wednesday.

The court heard funding for their legal representation was due soon.

Lawyers for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust argue the life-sustaining treatment is causing her pain

Mr Justice Peel described the pair as "parents who are utterly devoted to this child and are by her bedside pretty much all the time" and said they "want to explore every possibility".

He said: "It has been little short of a public scandal, in my view, that until recently parents of children in these cases have not been eligible for public funding."

Lawyers for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have asked the judge to rule that it is not in Indi's best interests for critical care to continue, including ventilation.

They argue the life-sustaining treatment is causing her pain.

After a previous hearing, Mr Gregory said the family were "just ordinary people" and needed help.

"We don't have a lawyer but we would desperately love to have one.

"We cannot afford to hire the lawyers we need to match the legal firepower of the hospital," he added.