Rape? Or Fixed Penalty? You decide.

The Ukrainian police exhumed another body yesterday. This one was the naked body of a woman in her 40s who had been subjected to multiple rapes and then had her throat cut.

In Europe.

In March 2022.

Worse still, as we hear more stories of Russian bestiality, we know that she was not alone in suffering this appalling fate.

We all know about the ICTY and the ICTR - both tribunals established to investigate and prosecute war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

Now there will be another ICTR – this one for Putin, his generals and Russia. There will be the usual legal arguments about accountability and knowledge, about joint criminal enterprise and who did what and when and who knew about what crime or ordered it. Years will pass and someone may be held accountable at some distant future point.

But all of this really matters – in contrast to whether or not Boris Johnson went to a party, or even two parties, in No 10 Downing Street some 18 months ago.

That does not matter at all. Not one jot. And no amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth will make it matter - certainly not now.

It is so shameful that we have learnt so little – and even more shameful that someone like Putin and his gang can commit war crimes and crimes against humanity and yet the British media and the left in the UK are actually talking about Boris’ fixed penalty notice for breaching Covid rules.

I wonder what the raped woman who had her throat cut would think of these priorities?

Daphne