A severely disabled baby at the centre of a “right to life” court battle will be allowed to die after his father withdrew his opposition.

Doctors and the one-year-old child’s mother had gone to the High Court for permission to switch off the infant’s life support system. But yesterday the father backed down on the seventh day of an emotionally charged High Court hearing, saying that he realised everything had been done for his son.

In a moving statement, the judge, Mr Justice McFarlane, paid tribute to the parents’ care for the boy, recognising the “immense stress” they had suffered — at the cost of their relationship. In one moment, he said, all their hopes and dreams for their baby had been dashed and replaced by a “a life characterised by worry, stress, exhaustion, confusion and no doubt great sadness”. Their decision yesterday was the “sad but inevitable outcome”.

In listening to the evidence unfold over days, he and the father had “travelled the same path” and “now reached the same conclusion”.

“I agree with the outcome and consider that the conclusion to which they and the clinicians have come is the only tenable outcome for RB, the viability of whose life, from its first moment, has depended upon receiving intensive and invasive care from others.”

Lawyers for the health authority caring for the baby in intensive care told Mr Justice McFarlane: “All of the parties in court now agree that it would be in RB’s best interests for the course suggested by the doctors to be followed.”

Declaring that such a course, with palliative care, would be lawful, the judge said the young, estranged parents had been “exemplary” in attending to their son at his hospital bedside every day of his short life.

A joint statement issued by lawyers for RB’s parents and the hospital trust said: “This has been an agonisingly difficult decision. RB’s parents would now wish to spend what little time remains with their beloved son.”

Although the parents had separated, they had been united in wanting the best possible care for their son so that he could have the best possible quality of life. The statement went on: “They have been at his bedside daily these last 13 months. RB is a dear little boy, adored by his parents, family and the hospital staff.

“RB’s parents and the trust will now make suitable arrangements to bring RB’s life to a dignified end in consultation with his parents.”

The boy was born in October last year with what is thought to be congenital myasthenic syndrome, a rare neuromuscular condition that severely limits the ability to breathe and move limbs.

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