AN anorexic teenage girl who lost her court battle for the legal right
to continue starving herself was moved to a London medical centre
yesterday after she reluctantly agreed to co-operate with doctors.
As three Court of Appeal Judges prepare their detailed judgment on the
legal implications of the case, the 16-year-old orphan will be treated
at a unit specialising in eating disorders, including the ''slimmer's
disease'' anorexia.
The unit has a policy of not force-feeding patients. It is understood
that the girl, identified in court only as J, will be treated by
counselling and persuasion in an attempt to get her to take food.
After the Judges had reserved judgment yesterday, the girl's
solicitor, Mr Major Somerton, said she was depressed about the court's
emergency ruling on Tuesday that she could be treated for her illness
without her consent.
''But she accepts that treatment will be administered and she will
probably co-operate -- but at what level we will have to see,'' he said.
She was still not eating and her weight had dropped slightly below 5st
7lb, but she was walking about and talkative. She was not ''curled up in
a corner,'' said Mr Somerton.
Once she had gained weight, her psychiatric problems would be dealt
with. At the end of the treatment programme, she would either go to
foster parents or return to the psychiatric unit where she was living
until yesterday.
The girl began losing weight in 1990 after the death of her
grandfather, of whom she was very fond. Her mother and father died from
cancer when she was young and she was said to have gone through
unfortunate experiences while in foster care.
The local authority which has care of her won its court argument that
it should be allowed to send her for treatment against her wishes. The
Judges held that, because of her rapidly failing health, the court could
overrule her wish to decide for herself if and when to resume eating.
But the Judges -- Lord Donaldson, Master of the Rolls, and Lords
Justices Balcombe and Nolan -- have yet to rule on the wider issues
affecting the rights of young people between the ages of 16 and 18 to
refuse medical treatment.
They have been referred to the 1969 Family Law Reform Act, under
which, it was argued in J's behalf, adolescents between 16 and the age
of majority have a right to decide for themselves.
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