Parents of tragic Charlie Gard discuss new life in Scotland and lookalike son Oliver
17.07.2022 - 00:03
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
The parents of tragic Charlie Gard have moved a big step closer in their battle for a law change to prevent other families suffering their agony. Connie Yates and Chris Gard want a bill to give parents a bigger say in the treatment of their children.
They believe it will prevent expensive, time-consuming legal battles like they experienced, reports the Mirror. Now they have revealed government chiefs have agreed to a Commons review of health rules to make room for Charlie’s Law in October.
If approved, new legislation could be in place as early as next year. The family have moved from west London to Inverness – where Connie’s family live.
She said: “It’s wonderful here. There’s so much more space. Our home is still covered in pictures, handprints and footprints of Charlie. It’s like a shrine to him and we feel close to him. We love him so much and he’ll never be forgotten.”
Chris added: “Finally it feels like we are close to helping Charlie change history. We are over the moon. When our boy died, there was a treatment in the US which could’ve saved him, which we were prevented from taking him to because the courts blocked it.
“We still can’t get our heads around how that was allowed to happen. So we have made it our goal to get the law changed so no other family has to go through what we did.”
Chris, 38, and Connie, 36, who are planning their wedding in Scotland, were talking before the fifth anniversary of their boy’s death on July 28. He died from a rare genetic condition a week before his first birthday – sparking an outpouring of sympathy around the globe.
Charlie appeared to be perfectly healthy on August 4, 2016, but at five weeks his parents were informed he was profoundly deaf. Within a few weeks, his health