LONDON (Reuters) - The parents of terminally ill baby Charlie Gard on Tuesday accused a London hospital of preventing their son from coming home to die, the latest harrowing confrontation in a legal battle that has raised emotions far and wide. A day after Connie Yates and Chris Gard ended their opposition to the removal of their critically ill baby’s life support system, the couple returned to court on Tuesday to ask that Great Ormond Street hospital’s objections to him being allowed to go home be overruled. Request to high court Great Ormond Street hospital bosses ask the high court judge, Mr Justice Francis, to rule that life-support treatment should stop. European court of human rights The case proceeds to the European court of human rights but a week later it is announced that the European judges have refused to intervene. Charlie’s parents had wanted to take him to the United States to undergo an experimental treatment never before tried on anyone with his condition, against the advice of Great Ormond Street doctors. Interventions Pope Francis and the US president, Donald Trump, intervene; the former calling for the couple to be allowed to “accompany and treat their child until the end”, saying he has followed the case with “affection and sadness”. Vatican hospital Bambino Gesu, the Vatican’s children’s hospital in Rome, offers to take Charlie in. Staff at Great Ormond Street, a hospital so revered in Britain that it was featured in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, have received death threats and abuse. Lawyers told a judge that Connie Yates and Chris Gard want a choice in "the circumstances in which Charlie's passing will be conducted" a day after they abandoned legal action over treatment for their son. Barrister Grant Armstrong, who represents the couple, said their "final wish" is to take Charlie home and indicated that Great Ormond Street Hospital doctors thought such a move would be problematic. But Katie Gollop QC, for Gosh, said the flight to the US would have required a specialist intensive care team, which would not be available in a home setting for days on end. Great Ormond Street Hospital’s lawyer told the High Court it had moved “heaven and earth” to allow 11-month-old Charlie to go home, but this was impossible for practical reasons. “DREADFUL CIRCUMSTANCES” 
 
 The court heard that a team of two to three intensive care doctors and four to six intensive care nurses would be required along with the equipment, including a ventilator that could not fit through the front door of Charlie’s home. The parents had wanted four days with Charlie before his death, Gollop said. The plight of Charlie, who suffers from a rare genetic condition causing progressive brain damage and muscle weakness, has been at the center of a bitter dispute between his parents and the hospital. The couple want Charlie to be taken to their home or to the home of a close relative or friend for his last moments until his life support system is switched off. But he went on to say that “given the gravity of the situation and the need to be as human as I can” he would give Charlie’s parents more time to make their case and make a final decision, in the absence of any unexpected developments, on Wednesday afternoon. At the end of the often acrimonious hearing, during which Butler-Cole told the court that the latest disagreement was a reflection of what happens when there was “such a fundamental breakdown in communications”, Armstrong, who was in tears in court on Tuesday, angrily confronted Gollop.
– Charlie Gard's death seems inevitable, but what is yet to be decided is how it will occur, with the infant's parents and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital still at odds. A lawyer says Connie Yates and Chris Gard, who on Monday ended their legal battle to move their 11-month-old son to the US for experimental treatment of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, want to take Charlie home where he can die in "tranquility" after "a short period of time," report the Telegraph and Reuters. In court on Tuesday, however, the lawyer cited "difficulties the hospital has placed in the way of the parents' wish," per the Guardian, which notes Charlie had been expected to be taken off life support at the hospital within a few days. A rep countered that the hospital would be willing to grant the parents' request if "practical, possible, and safe, and in Charlie's interests so that he comes to no harm." However, she says Charlie's parents have proposed no plan and the hospital is unable to provide a medical team to care for Charlie for the amount of time requested at home; the exact time requested isn't known, but Charlie's parents previously said the boy wasn't expected to live to see his first birthday on Aug. 4. The hospital rep also says Charlie's parents have refused mediation offers "for reasons Great Ormond Street will never know." After hearing from both sides in High Court on Tuesday, the presiding judge suggested a settlement would be appropriate.