First, they were made of strips of animal hide, rope, reeds and vines. During the Bronze Age they were made stronger and come the Iron Age a more sophisticated workmanship was employed. A simple one size-fits-all was the only utility until around 1862 when W.V.Adams patented the first set of adjustable ratchet handcuffs.

Handcuffs have been used to restrain murderers, maniacs, rapists, thieves, arsonists and common criminals. I don't think they were ever intended to be used on a father and mother, frantic about the imminent death of their very sick son.

What have we come to?

I'm no lawyer but what on-going criminality on the part of Mr and Mrs King, parents of troubled Ashya, necessitated a European Arrest Warrant and for them to be manacled? The Crown Prosecution Service is thought to be reviewing their decision.

As far as I can tell; two perfectly sane, loving parents lawfully took their child from a hospital in Europe, that cannot offer a sophisticated therapy, to one in Europe that can. The treatment is proton beam therapy. There is a PBT centre in Madrid near the prison where Mr and Mrs King are presently banged-up.

Protein beam therapy; in simple terms does less collateral damage to the area surrounding the cancer than the usual treatments. It is a rifle-shot as opposed to a blunderbuss. The Christie's and UCLH want to build them here. Here is the business case service development programme. I'm hearing the Treasury have been palavering around for ages. Because we don't do PBT here the Carbuncle has shipped children and their families overseas. Over 90 children at about �100k a go. It is successful but can you imagine the trauma of the whole experience.

What's the panic? Could it be because Mr and Mrs King are Jehovah's Witnesses? It shouldn't make a damn-of-difference. It's blood transfusions they object to. Are they difficult to deal with, questioning and challenging? Probably.  I would be.

Why was it necessary for the Police to search Ashya's grandmother's house... to obtain a sympathetic family picture to use in the papers, perhaps? No, they published the type of mug-shot used when they hunt terrorists. Criminalisation by implication.

I'm writing this late afternoon, Monday. Pictures are on the telly of the Kings being carted off to spend the night in a Spanish jail. At the same time a PTCentre in Prague (where the Kings were thought headed) has agreed to treat Ashya. They say they'll worry about the money later. All they want is his medical records. No doubt some bureaucratic dunderhead will say they can't have the records without the parents' consent and as they are in jail they can't do it.

Proton therapy is available in USA, Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, France, Poland, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Not Southampton. If you think you might need some protons, there is a website.

The NHS has a panel to advise on whether proton beam therapy is appropriate. In this case I have no idea if it is or not. What I do know for absolute certainty is; putting Mum and Dad in handcuffs won't help.

The Southampton Trust issued a press statement...

"...we have discussed proton beam radiotherapy with...(the) family... there are some tumours that respond well to this type of treatment, but there are some cases where there isn't the evidence that this is a beneficial treatment..."

In other words we don't think it'll work. No reason for handcuffing the parents for wanting to try.

So, what have we got? The Treasury, whose invisible face we never see, fiddling about with the money and who are the root-cause of the problem. The Crown Prosecution Service who appear to have lost face, the Southampton NHS Trust who look very shame-faced, the Police facing ridicule and the Spanish authorities who, let's face it... look like they are run by Monty Python.

Everybody calm down; this multi-disciplinary gang have made a mess of things. Somebody send Ashya's records to Czechoslovakia and wish the family well. You never know, there is a lonely frightened little boy in a Spanish hospital who might just pull through.

Pray for him and pray you are never in the same situation.