Polish government makes diplomatic move in controversy over Plymouth hospital patient
The Polish government is seeking diplomatic status for a man who is critically ill at Derriford Hospital, in a last-ditch attempt to repatriate him and offer continued treatment - despite a Court of Appeal ruling, backed by the man s wife, that his life support machine should be turned off
Chaplain Paul Song talks with The Sunday Times in a story published February 4, 2018, about being forced out of his position at Brixton prison in London, England. | The Sunday Times
The case of a pastor banned from prison chaplaincy for 10 years will not proceed to judicial review but will be heard at a county court instead, the high court decided on Tuesday.
Pastor Paul Song, 51, a former detective, was banned from the chaplaincy after a 2018 whistleblowing interview with the Mail on Sunday in which he alleged that Islamic extremists had hijacked his chapel and Bible classes at HMP Brixton.
In the interview, he said inmates had taken over the prison s Christian chapel and praised the killers of murdered soldier Lee Rigby.
A London judge ruled in December that allowing the heart attack victim to die was in his best interests after hearing from his wife that he would not want to be a burden.
Pastor Paul Song was banned indefinitely from working in London jails after exposing the influence of Muslim gangs at HMP Brixton in The Mail on Sunday
A Christian prison chaplain who revealed his Bible meetings were hijacked by Islamic extremists is taking legal action after being punished for whistleblowing.
Pastor Paul Song was banned indefinitely from working in London jails after exposing the influence of Muslim gangs at HMP Brixton in The Mail on Sunday.
Lawyers will seek a judicial review of the decision at the High Court hearing on Tuesday. They will claim it, among other things, breached his right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Z v University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust & Ors [2020] EWCOP 69
A decision by Mr Justice Cohen in the Court of Protection, which reiterated his previous decision to end life sustaining treatment for RS, an unconscious man in a vegetative state. This application had been brought by RS’s estranged birth family, who argued that RS would wish to be kept alive based on his Catholic faith and who sought to move him to Poland.
Background
RS is a middle-aged Polish man who, after suffering a cardiac arrest on 6 November 2020, has at best a 10-20% chance of progressing to the lowest end of a minimally conscious state (called MCS-minus). At that state, he might have been able to acknowledge the presence of a human being, but without being able to demonstrate knowing who they were. Prior to an application by the hospital responsible for RS s care – University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust – to the Court of Protection for permission to discontinue his life-sustaining treatment, RS was