Judge rules out amputation

First Edition

A MAN with schizophrenia yesterday won a High Court injunction preventing doctors from amputating his gangrenous right leg.

Mr Justice Thorpe said the 68-year-old man - known as 'C' and who has been in Broadmoor Hospital for 30 years - understood the purpose of the treatment he was refusing. He was satisfied that C, detained in the early 1960s for causing grievous bodily harm, had the right of self-determination.

Doctors put C's chance of survival without amputation at 15 per cent, but the man said he would rather die with two feet than live with one. The judge granted an injunction preventing any amputation without C's written consent.