Mother wins vaccine battle

A mother has successfully won a landmark court case to prevent the state from administering the Covid-19 vaccine to her disabled son, who has a rare heart condition.

After a prolonged three-year legal battle, the mother, known only as Sarah, described her ordeal as a “Kafkaesque nightmare” as she fought to protect her son, Tom. Tom, who has severe learning difficulties and various life-threatening conditions, was the subject of a ruling by Mr. Justice Hayden in the Court of Protection. The judge concluded that it was “no longer in Tom’s best interests to receive the jab” due to the significantly changed “virus landscape” since the peak of the pandemic.

The ruling came after an American professor of pediatrics testified that Tom was more likely to experience heart complications, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, if he received an mRNA vaccine. Despite this, Sarah expressed that her trust in social services, doctors, and the courts had been severely eroded. She accused the government of enforcing a policy that disregards individual circumstances.

Tom’s medical conditions, which include a chromosome abnormality causing severe learning difficulties, mean he has the mental age of an 18-month-old child despite being 24 years old. Sarah feared the mRNA vaccine, designed to trigger an immune response to Covid, could adversely affect his heart and resisted the push from doctors and social workers to vaccinate him for the “greater good of society.”

Because Tom was over 18 when the government mandated that the most vulnerable should be vaccinated during the pandemic, the Court of Protection appointed a lawyer to act in his “best interests.” This lawyer, along with the local integrated care board, supported the calls for him to be vaccinated. Sarah raised £60,000 through crowdfunding and spent her £25,000 life savings to fight the case. She claims she faced threats of arrest, jail, asset seizure, and the possibility of her son being removed from their home to be “forcibly jabbed.”

Sarah, 60, living in north-west England, shared her emotional turmoil with The Telegraph: “It has felt like a Kafkaesque nightmare because I was taking on the state that wouldn’t budge. I went from being a loving mother and Tom’s sole carer to a near criminal. I have been made to feel like a liar, a bad person, and a fanatic. I was wrongly accused of being an anti-vaxxer just for questioning whether this new gene therapy was right for my son and his complex conditions.”

Two years ago, Judge Burrows of the Court of Protection in Preston ruled that Tom was in an at-risk group and should have the jab, citing the altruistic need of every citizen to contribute to public health efforts. However, the recent ruling by Mr. Justice Hayden, influenced by evidence from Professor Martin McCaffrey, highlighted the risks of heart complications due to Tom’s partial trisomy 13 condition.

Professor Adam Finn, a pediatrics expert from Bristol University, concurred with the assessment but noted that such findings would not have altered public policy during the pandemic’s peak.

In his judgment, Mr. Justice Hayden noted the “changing landscape of the virus and increasing immunity within the community,” leading him to conclude that vaccinating Tom was no longer in his best interests. He acknowledged the emotional toll on Sarah, recognizing the corrosive nature of such proceedings on morale.