Jenni Richards KC
Year of call: 1991
Silk: 2011
News
Jenni Richards QC & Rose Grogan successfully represent widow trying to prevent frozen embryos destruction in the High Court
Jenni Richards QC and Rose Grogan have successfully represented a widow of a Falklands war veteran trying to prevent the destruction of their frozen embryos.
Samantha Jefferies, 42, and her husband Clive were about to start fertility treatment with embryos they had created when he died suddenly in 2014 from a brain haemorrhage. They had ticked the box to consent to 10 years embryo storage but were asked by their clinic, Sussex Downs Fertility Centre, to change it to two years because that was the limit of their NHS funding.
Judge Sir James Munby said in his judgment that it was "obviously right" they be stored for 10 years and he said he was sorry Mrs Jefferies had ended up in court as a result of the mistakes of others. Embryos, like sperm and eggs, can be stored for a maximum of 10 years before couples must renew their written consent.
Mrs Jefferies, from East Sussex, said she just wants "to be a mum" and the embryos are her "last chance" of having her dead husband's child.
Jenni and Rose were instructed by James Lawford Davies of Hempsons Solicitors.
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