A British woman paralysed from the neck down for more than a year has won her High Court battle for the right to die.
The woman, who was granted anonymity and referred to in court as Miss B, learned she had won her case via a video link to her hospital bed.
The landmark ruling by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the High Court family division, will permit the woman to end her life peacefully and with dignity, the judge said. Miss B was also awarded £100 damages for "unlawful trespass".
At the original hearing earlier this month, three screens inside the courtroom showed the woman, who is kept alive by a ventilator, lying in her bed surrounded by a team of lawyers and medical staff.
The court heard the 43-year-old former social care professional explain why she wanted to leave the hospital intensive care ward where she has been kept alive for a year and taken to doctors who are prepared to switch off her life-support machine.
Doctors at the hospital said it would be against their ethics to switch off the machine needed to keep the patient alive since a ruptured blood vessel in her neck a year ago left her paralysed and unable to breathe unaided.
PA