IT WAS, in its way, the only cruelty of an otherwise meticulous and compassionate judge to make the parents of a hideously disabled child endure nearly 2½ hours of his legal reasoning before disclosing whether their son would live or die.

Starting at 10.30am in Court 49 of the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Justice Holman chose to read his 30-page judgment at a slow, clear pace, so that those with no knowledge of the law might follow his train of thought. It was nearly 1pm, when the thoughts of lesser courts turn to lunch, that he delivered the headline. The boy lying in a hospital in the North of England could live. Doctors would not be permitted to turn off the support machinery; there was a life, however limited and imperfect, in that tiny body, one seemingly capable of experiencing pleasure.

We know the child only as MB, an anomalous impersonality in such a heartrending case, but the judge has ruled that neither he, nor his parents, nor the hospital, can be identified.

MB’s parents sat between members of their legal team two rows back in a courtroom filled with reporters, lawyers, hospital officials and members of life-support charities, but with its public gallery closed. He, aged 29, wore a dark anorak and a face largely devoid of expression. She, 22, wore a chunky white poloneck jumper, and sat throughout with her arms folded on the desk, her chubby face exhibiting little sign of tension, fear or hope. Both listened intently to the judge, sometimes looking directly at him on the bench high above them, sometimes staring at the floor. Occasionally they would take sips of bottled water, or would turn to each other and whisper, but their expressions betrayed little beyond undivided attention to the judge’s narrative.

He began by returning to them photographs and a video of their baby that they had given him, and invited them to ask for a lavatory break at any time, as he would be speaking for about two hours. It was an hour and forty minutes before he suggested a brief recess. Both accepted with alacrity and their first smile of the morning.

For all the careful legal reasoning, the judge could not avoid the painful humanity of the case, and nor did he seek to. He described it as deeply stressful for parents and doctors; he told how doctors described MB’s condition as the worst of its kind they had seen; and he described the child’s descent into immobilty, his inability to swallow, his epileptic fits.

As he weighed up the benefits and burdens of the child’s life, it appeared he was making a momentous decision based on two tables of pros and cons. His statement was so carefully balanced that the couple had no clue until almost the very end which way he would swing.

A momentary look of wistfulness passed over the face of MB’s mother as the judge listed five possible options, one of which was to allow the child to die peacefully in his parents’ arms — the one favoured by the paediatricians. The parents have fought long and hard against the received medical wisdom of the case, even though, as the judge said, they may be deluding themselves that their son has a future.

At long last, Mr Justice Holman gave his ruling that the boy shall live, if not perhaps for long. The parents realised immediately what he had said. The father broke into a brief but broad smile; the mother’s expression hardly altered, although with a little imagination you could say it had changed from impassivity to quiet satisfaction. She allowed herself a small sigh.

The parents had clearly impressed the judge with their honesty and commitment to a severely damaged child. From the Olympian heights of his bench, which seemed less grand and more human than usual, he wished them well and said it had been “a very great privilege” to meet them.

They nodded and smiled. They had won. It may be a pyrrhic victory, but in a northern hospital last night a tiny, sad but precious life was still plugged in to the mains.

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