STAFF at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) have received thousands of death threats and abusive online messages in relation to the Charlie Gard case, it has emerged.
The London hospital said that the hospital was working with the Metropolitan Police following reports of abuse which staff have received both on the street and online.
The parents of Charlie Gard, Mr Gard and Ms Yates, have been embroiled in an ongoing legal case regarding their 11-month-old son, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage.
They want him to undergo a therapy trial in New York, however doctors at GOSH say the therapy is experimental, will not help and that life-support treatment should stop.
The case is due back before a High Court judge on Monday.
Mary MacLeod, Chairman of GOSH, said in statement that while she understood that there was "intense public interest" in the case and that "emotions run high", there was no excuse for the threatening behaviour.
She said: "We recognise the tireless advocacy of Charlie's loving parents and the natural sympathy people feel with his situation.
"However, in recent weeks the GOSH community has been subjected to a shocking and disgraceful tide of hostility and disturbance.
"Staff have received abuse both in the street and online. Thousands of abusive messages have been sent to doctors and nurses whose life's work is to care for sick children.
"Many of these messages are menacing, including death threats.
"Families have been harassed and discomforted while visiting their children, and we have received complaints of unacceptable behaviour even within the hospital itself.
"Whatever the strong emotions raised by this case, there can be no excuse for patients and families to have their privacy and peace disturbed as they deal with their own often very stressful situations or for dedicated doctors and nurses to suffer this kind of abuse.
"Great Ormond Street Hospital is in close contact with the Metropolitan Police and we will do everything possible to hold to account anybody who involved in this kind of deplorable behaviour."
Keir Starmer, the constituency MP for the hospital, said: "Charlie Gard's case is truly tragic and the whole nation sympathises with his parents. It is understandable that people feel very strongly about the case.
"But the abuse of staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital outside the hospital and online is totally unacceptable. There is no place for this abuse and it has to stop."
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