Beautiful Girl Face Death Because She Wanted To Live

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A terminally-ill teenager has won a legal battle against an attempt to force her to have a heart transplant - a decision likely to lead to her death.

Hannah Jones, 13, was reportedly warned she could be removed from her parents' custody and forced to have surgery.

Hannah, from Marden, Herefordshire, has suffered from leukaemia and was told by doctors a transplant may be fatal.

But the decision not to have the transplant means she may have just six months to live.

Health officials went to the High Court to force her to undergo the operation, it was reported.

But the proceedings have now been abandoned.

Hannah told the Daily Mirror: "They explained everything to me but I didn't want to go through any more operations. I'd had enough of hospitals and wanted to come home."

Her father Andrew, 43, told the Daily Telegraph: "It is outrageous that the people from the hospital could presume we didn't have our daughter's best interests at heart.

"Hannah had been through enough already and to have the added stress of a possible court hearing or being forcibly taken into hospital is disgraceful.

"It was hurtful to be accused of preventing her from doing anything, when everything we do is geared towards her happiness."

The teenager has a hole in her heart - meaning it can only pump a fraction of its normal capacity.

The damage was caused by treatment for a rare form of leukaemia diagnosed when she was five.

Hannah had been previously warned that she had only six months to live and that the only potential long-term solution was a heart transplant.

In a letter to the Jones family, Herefordshire Primary Care Trust chief executive Chris Bull said the Trust had concluded that it was "not appropriate" to seek a court order requiring Hannah to be admitted to hospital.

He added that Hannah appeared to "understand the serious nature of her condition" and that she "demonstrated awareness that she could die".