Court of protection Turn off life support for police officer, judge rules Wife of Paul Briggs had argued for Gulf war veteran left in minimally conscious state after motorbike crash to be allowed to die 
 
 Paul Briggs, pictured with his wife, Lindsey, and daughter Ella, was in a crash while serving with Merseyside police last year. Photograph: Family handout/PA 
 
 Doctors should stop providing life support treatment to a former police officer and British army veteran who was left in a minimally conscious state after a road accident, a judge has ruled. 
 
 The wife of the Gulf war veteran Paul Briggs had asked the court of protection to allow her husband to die, saying he would have seen living in his current condition as torture and hell. 
 
 Briggs, 43, has been in a minimally conscious state since a motorcycle crash while serving with Merseyside police in July last year. The father of one, who is being treated at the Walton Centre in Liverpool, suffered a bleed on the brain, five fractures in his spine, bruising to internal organs and several other severe injuries in the collision. 
 
 Mr Justice Charles announced his decision on Tuesday after analysing evidence presented at a hearing in Manchester last month in the court of protection, where judges consider issues relating to people who lack the mental capacity to take decisions. 
 
 The judge agreed that it was not in Briggs’s best interests for treatment to continue, and that it was lawful to withdraw treatment. He recommended that Briggs be moved to a hospice to be given palliative care for the final weeks of his life. 
 
 Lawyers acting for Briggs through the government-appointed official solicitor’s office have asked for permission to appeal against the decision, so his treatment is likely to continue until the new year, when a decision will be made on whether the appeal can go ahead. 
 
 After the ruling, Briggs’s wife, Lindsey, said the court case had been the hardest thing she had ever had to do and that the past 18 months had been “extremely distressing and traumatic”. She thanked the judge and said he had been able to “place himself in Paul’s situation, and for that we will be forever thankful”. 
 
 “All our lives have been turned upside down,” she said, referring to their families, including five-year-old daughter, Ella. “We have been living in darkness and despair, from when Paul had the crash in the first place, through all the uncertainty, having to watch him suffer and be in pain, and all the endless procedures and complications.” 
 
 She said the family was dismayed to learn that the decision may be appealed. “We feel overwhelming despair and sorrow, but we know we have to try to somehow cope and continue for Paul,” she said. “Given this continued uncertainty, Christmas will now not be a peaceful occasion for us.” 
 
 Doctors had told the judge there was potential for Briggs to emerge from his minimally conscious state, but that the life expectancy of people in his condition was estimated to be nine to 10 years. Medical experts told the court that even in a best-case scenario, Briggs would remain severely physically disabled. 
 
 
 
 Lindsey Briggs told the hearing on 28 November that he did not recognise her or respond to her when she went to see him. “I think he would see it as torture, just as hell, that everything he believes in and he lives for would just be taken away from him. He would be living for no reason.” 
 
 She said that when she looked into his eyes she saw “at best, nothing there, or at worst, distress or suffering”. 
 
 Conrad Hallin, representing the Walton Centre NHS foundation trust and the Wirral clinical commissioning group, told the court doctors had noticed some signs of improvement in Briggs’s condition. 
 
 Normally, patients at the centre of court of protection litigation are not identified because judges aim to protect their privacy. But Briggs’s accident was widely reported and no one involved in the litigation had asked for him to remain anonymous so the judge allowed him to be named. 
 
 
 
 Chelsea Rowe, 26, received a 12-month prison term in July after admitting causing serious injury to Briggs by dangerous driving. Liverpool crown court heard Rowe was driving a Nissan Micra that was in a head-on collision with Briggs’s motorcycle on the Birkenhead flyover. 
 
 ||||| A judge has said that doctors should be able to withdraw treatment from a Gulf War veteran who was left in a coma after a head-on collision, ruling that is what he would have wanted. 
 
 Lindsey Briggs had asked judges to allow her policeman husband Paul to die, against the view of doctors at the Liverpool hospital where he is being treated who said it would be wrong to withdraw treatment as he is in a “minimally conscious state” but not a “permanent vegetative state”. 
 
 On Tuesday Mr Justice Charles, sitting in the Court of Protection, agreed that, despite his “natural instinct of survival”, Pc Briggs would have wanted to die and that he should be moved to a hospice where he would stop receiving fluids and nutrition and would receive palliative care in his final few weeks. 
 
 Mr Justice Charles ruled that Pc Briggs’s “best interests are best served by giving effect to what he would have been able to dictate by exercising his right to self determination rather than the very powerful counter arguments based on the preservation of his life”.
– Lindsey Briggs says her husband, a UK police officer and veteran, no longer recognizes or responds to her, and on Tuesday she won the right to let him die, the Guardian reports. According to the Telegraph, 43-year-old Paul Briggs was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle to work in 2015. He suffered brain damage and five spinal fractures, the London Times reports. Lindsey Briggs says it would have been better if her husband had died in the crash. She says she and their 5-year-old daughter have spent the past 18 months in "darkness and despair" and wants her husband taken off life support based on "his previously expressed wishes." A British judge ruled in Lindsey Briggs' favor Tuesday, saying life-preserving treatment should cease and Paul Briggs should be moved to hospice. The Times notes it's the first time the country has ruled that a "clinically stable" patient can stop receiving food and water. The decision is likely to be appealed, the BBC reports. At issue is Paul Briggs' state and chances for recovery. A lawyer for Lindsey Briggs says her husband is in a "permanent vegetative state." But neurological experts say Paul Briggs is actually "minimally conscious," defined as "when a person shows clear but minimal or inconsistent awareness." More so, they argue there's a possibility for recovery, though he would be unlikely to live longer than 10 years and would be "severely physically disabled." While Lindsey Briggs says she's "grateful" for the judge's ruling, the possibility of an appeal has ruined the family's chances for a "peaceful" Christmas. (This dying teen won the right to have her body frozen.)