The father of baby Charlotte Wyatt today pleaded with a judge to force doctors to perform one last operation on the dying 11-month-old because he believes she could make a miraculous recovery.

Charlotte was born three months premature, weighing 1lb and was 5in long, the length of a ballpoint pen. She has never left hospital due to serious heart and lung problems and is fed through a tube because she cannot suck from a bottle and needs a constant supply of oxygen.

Doctors at St Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth, who have had to resuscitate the baby three times, do not want to rescue her again and are seeking a court order to that effect. They argue that she would endure intolerable pain and suffering if her life is artificially prolonged.

Today Darren Wyatt, 33, told Mr Justice Headley, who must weigh up conflicting appeals from the Wyatts and Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust: "When you get to the stage when you grow to love someone, you can't just throw them away like a bad egg and say you will get a different egg."

Mr Wyatt said that doctors should perform a tracheostomy - the insertion of a breathing tube through the throat - so long as Charlotte did not suffer.

He told the judge that he was willing to sign a contract to the effect that he and his wife would let Charlotte go if, at the end of five days after a tracheostomy, there was nothing more that could be done.

"That is fine with me. I am sure that is fine with my wife as well because I speak for both of us," he said. Debbie Wyatt, 23, is pregnant with their third child and Mr Wyatt has three children, aged 13, 12 and 8, from his first marriage.

Mrs Wyatt was a care worker in an old people's home and her husband a trainee chef, but both have given up work because of stress. Both are devout Christians.

Paediatricians say that Charlotte is unlikely to survive beyond infancy and even then will never be able to leave hospital because of the terrible problems she faces.

But Mr Wyatt said that he appreciated that Charlotte would be much more disabled, but she should be able to have some life. The doctors, only weeks after saying Charlotte might live, were then saying she would die. "From my experience, I don't think the doctors know what they are doing," he said.

It was obvious, when he and his wife were holding their daughter, that "she doesn't want to go". He said: "If she could last a little bit longer, it gives us a bit more time with our daughter and for that extra bonding.

"I do believe in miracles. If the man upstairs says this person should live, then this person should live." Mr Wyatt said his stepfather had lived for 10 years after being told he had only six months.

He described how Charlotte, before she went for ventilation at an intensive care unit outside the Portsmouth area, used to "really love" focusing on musical toys he and his wife bought for her.

She had an infection which caused brain damage and she needed to be re-ventilated because of that infection.

But he said that he had noticed in the past couple of weeks that Charlotte had started to be "a bit more alert" and when held would grab his finger and enjoyed being cuddled.

The judge suggested that sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference "between your enjoyment and hers" and that in such cases a child's grip "may be a spontaneous reflex".

But Mr Wyatt said Charlotte had gripped his finger "for may be an hour". Asked by the judge whether he had given any thought about what he would like the actual circumstances of Charlotte's death to be, if she were to die, Mr Wyatt said: "Basically for her to go slowly, with tender loving care."

David Lock, counsel for the Trust, told the judge yesterday the case was "essentially non-adversarial". "It isn't a case of either party winning or losing," he said. "It concerns the vexed issue of the best treatment to be provided for what all the experts agree is an extremely ill baby with life-limiting conditions."

The Wyatts have accepted that the care given to their daughter so far had been of the highest standard and there was no criticism of the hospital. "But, despite many hours of meetings and soul-searching on both sides, there is no agreement and the court has the unenviable job of deciding what is in the best interests of the child," said Mr Lock.

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