One of the founders of cryonics in the UK has backed a dying teenager’s decision to be frozen in the hope she can one day be cured of cancer .

Alan Sinclair, 78, is waiting to join wife Sylvia, who is suspended in a liquid nitrogen tank after her sudden death in 2013.

The former electrical engineer and care home manager founded the UK’s first cryonic group in 1989 and said the schoolgirl, whose case was revealed, had made a “brave choice”.

The 14-year-old , who cannot be identified for legal reasons, won a High Court battle to save her wish to be cryogenically frozen after her estranged dad objected.

Her fight can only be reported now she has passed away. Her remains have gone to the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan, US, thanks to Cryonics UK who prepare her body after death.

The Alcor Cryonics theatre (
Image:
Nigel Bowles/Connors Brighton)

Sylvia Sinclair was ‘patient 117’ at the facility when she succumbed to cancer aged 66 after 46 years of marriage. Last month, the London schoolgirl arrived at the same unit as ‘patient 143’.

Mr Sinclair said: “It is a reasonable gamble to take. This way she stands a chance if the technology advances. It is going in the right direction so I am confident it will.

“We cannot bring people back at the moment and no-one should be given a false impression.

“But heart attacks used to be fatal more often than not when I was younger and now thanks to technology, it is not always the case. It is just an evolution of repairing the body.”

The grandad of five, through health insurance, has already paid the £20,000 ($25,000) to have his whole body frozen at the Cryonics Institute in the US when his time comes.

Alan Sinclair with the Alcor Cryonics ambulance (
Image:
Nigel Bowles/Connors Brighton)

Mr Sinclair, of Peacehaven, East Sussex, said: “Obviously I am not looking forward to going but I will go and be back with Sylvia, both of us suspended until the technology can bring us back.

“No one wants to die, but waking up in another life with the woman you love would be absolutely lovely.”

He revealed that during his time leading the unlicensed and unregulated British cryonics group, Mr Sinclair signed up all sorts of people, including a Church of England vicar: “I thought: if there’s an afterlife, why cryonics? But he never explained. Perhaps he never really believed.”

Zoe Fleetwood, the girl’s lawyer, revealed her client called Mr Justice Peter Jackson, the judge who ruled in her favour, “Mr Hero”.

Ms Fleetwood said: “When the decision was communicated to her on October 6, she was very pleased and delighted and she wanted to see the judge.

“He went to see her the very next day and she said to me afterwards that he was ‘Mr Hero Peter Jackson’.

The Alcor Cryonics theatre (
Image:
Nigel Bowles/Connors Brighton)

“It was an extraordinary process, very quick and very sensitively carried out with respect for the family who are grieving at this time and wish for their privacy to be protected.

“Knowing her wishes were to be followed gave her great comfort. Very sadly she died on October 17 and so she had those last few days knowing that her wish was granted.

“She was a remarkable young girl and it was a great privilege to represent her. She had extraordinary determination.”

Mr Sinclair added: “At 14, she had barely lived. Now she has a chance, no matter how small, to one day live again.

“When I was 14, I was out working. No-one can say ‘she is just a child’. She was obviously bright enough and well able to make her decision.”

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