Blog: What a week we’ve had! Wall to wall sunshine rarely seen in our damp and drizzly land, beautiful! I’m not one of life’s sunbathers but at least I can choose to go and fry myself golden brown if I want to.

But the sunshine makes me think about those who can’t get outside at all – elderly folk in stuffy living-rooms, hospital patients in hot and sticky beds …

Perhaps it’s hearing of the unlucky lady known as ‘M’, locked in to a minimally conscious state after a virus left her brain-damaged and helpless in 2003. She had been a fit and active hairdresser with many years of life ahead – contrast that just a few years later with a life dependant on others for eating, sleeping, even unable to breathe on her own.

Her grieving family applied to the courts to allow her life-support to be withdrawn, tortured by their belief that she is suffering pain and has no quality of life. They argue that she had previously told family members that she would not want to be kept alive in such circumstances.

But Justice Baker, after hearing the heartbreaking evidence, has ruled that she should not be allowed to die after hearing that she occasionally shows small bursts of consciousness, crying at certain pop songs and sometimes smiling.

The relative’s application was opposed by the Official Solicitor acting for ‘M’ who said that such decisions would be the start of a slippery slope and were ‘tantamount to murder’.

Now I don’t claim to know much about the law in these situations and no-one categorically knows how happy, or not M is. But I do know that ending up in a situation like M’s absolutely terrifies most of us and were it to happen to me, I would pray my family is as brave. In my mind it would be worse to be locked into a life without worth than to have that life prematurely switched off. And let’s remember M is only alive due to extensive life-support.

I realise Justice Baker has had a terrible choice to make which is exactly why the family’s views should play a much more significant role in any decision making by the courts. They know her better than anyone and are now her only true voice, if only someone would listen.

I can’t help wondering where the consistency is in our courts. Because while this case has been rolling painfully on, many of those prosecuted for taking part in the recent riots have been appealing against apparently ‘too harsh’ sentences. And you and I both know that most of them will be quietly sent out the back door with cushy, community terms now that nobody’s looking.

If only judges could show the same backbone with criminals, looters and rioters as they have done with this helpless, brain-damaged lady and her family, maybe we could all sleep a little safer in our beds at night.