Ratko Mladic

So the long arm of the law has finally caught up with Ratko Mladic, the evil creature (I won't dignify him by calling him a man) who is accused of genocide.

When I saw the frail sixty-eight-year-old being led away I didn't feel jubilant that they'd caught him at last, my mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of the people he'd mercilessly ordered to be killed. Devoid of any conscious without pity or compassion he sent thousands to their graves. One of the ruthless killers who brought horrific ethnic cleansing back to Europe less than half a century after Hitler tried to wipe out the Jews.

I read an article by Phillip Sherwell (Daily Telegraph) who wrote about Mladic and how his campaign to kill Muslims reached its climax in the summer of 1995 when Bosnian Serb forces led 7,000 men and boys into fields where they were executed and buried in mass graves.

I tried to imagine the fear that went through those poor people being led to their deaths and the mothers, wives, sisters who watched helplessly.

I thought about the moments in my life when I had felt true fear. The day at the seaside when my little boy went missing (thankfully he was found). The doctor telling me I had cancer. The moment I realised my mum was dying.

That fear was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. A cold terror that ran up my spine and enveloped me. The most terrible, all-consuming dread of what was about to happen. We all get scared sometimes but true fear is indescribable.

Imagine for a moment what those people, and millions more in history like them, went through. The reality of what Mladic is accused of comes crashing home and we should never forget victims of such atrocities.

It doesn't matter what happens to Mladic if he is convicted he will never pay for what he has done. Nothing comes close to punishing such people and there have been many throughout history. Without giving it too much thought I can think of the obvious ones such as Stalin and Hitler. Bin Laden and Pol Pot. Idi Amin. Not to mention serial killers such as Ian Brady, Ted Bundy, The Countess Bathory and many, many more.

If I had just one wish it would be that those people would be able to feel the fear they inflicted on their victims. A magic drug whereby they could walk in the shoes of those that suffered at their hands. But they never will feel that fear and the world will never learn. There will be another Mladic. Somewhere. Someday.

And while I am feeling so sad. I'd like to point out something fleet street fox said in her blog the other day. While we have been preoccupied with celebrity news. The super-injuction saga and now Cheryl Cole getting kicked off the X-Factor. Fleet street fox points out that buried in the back of the newspaper this week was the news that 1,000 women, girls and boys have been raped in Misrata, Libya on orders of the officers of Gaddaffi's regime.

Sorry to be so maudlin but just for a moment, I think we should all spare a thought - and a prayer - for the victims of these evil beasts.