[Acrylic-bob]

I agree. The Judge was pushing the boundary of the law as far as he could, but Mr Blackburn will now live the rest of his life with a criminal record.

Is it fair and just and equitable to criminalise a person for acting out of the highest and most honourable motives of compassion and love? And how terrible it is for them both to have had to resort to this dreadful, clandestine performance, on top of the grief, pain and heartache caused by the illness itself.

An acquaintance of mine is currently too-ing a fro-ing between BRI and home waiting for his father to die. This has been going on now for a fortnight. Slowly, painfully, the old chap is sinking into insensibility, his vital organs are beginning to fail. There is absolutely no chance whatever of recovery. But despite the patient's repeated requests, there is no one who can help him end the pain and distress that he is in.

His son said to me the other day "If he was an animal, I would be sent to prison for allowing him to suffer like this." It makes it all the more difficult to witness his father's decline when he remembers how his father did everything that love demands to spare his son pain and distress.

What do you say? How do you make the unbearable, bearable?