A MAN I’ve read about who died from natural causes aged 55, had in previous decades, arranged for not just one but two of his young wives to be killed and killed horribly. He got away with it.

He had multiple affairs (and probably diseases) didn’t pay much attention to his legitimate daughter and was totally obsessed with his young son who was, it’s easy to imagine, terrified of him. Let’s say he had a towering personality.

Married several times, it’s likely there are more of this man’s children than he could ever have guessed or acknowledged. And there the resemblance to Prime Minister Boris Johnson begins and ends in the week where another female Johnson was added to the flock.

There are parts of the world where what we in the UK would term barbaric practices are carried out by the state as punishments. Women are whipped for adultery, stoned, beheaded. People are tortured, mutilated and imprisoned without trial. In the UK, where we do not have a death penalty, these forms of punishment seem horrifying to many people. Some others though, want to bring them back.

Every time there is an evil, horrific crime, especially one that involves children, cries to bring back hanging can be heard.

When an American diplomat’s wife, Anne Sakoulas, drove on the wrong side of the road and killed Harry Dunn, aged 19, she fled back to the US pleading immunity. Harry died August 27, 2019, and ever since then his family have lobbied and lobbied and sought support and put pressure on our government to prosecute. Somehow, they have kept going despite repeated brush-offs. Harry’s parents have been so heart-breakingly determined to fight for their son. Watching them speak, their devastation and loss seems to seek justice, not retribution. I’m not sure I would have their grace in that situation.

The best news for me today therefore is that Mrs Sakoulas is to attend a magistrates court in the UK in January by video-link charged with causing Harry Dunn’s death by dangerous driving. I do hope that she will attend and I hope that whatever the outcome, Harry Dunn’s family can know they fought for his killing to be acknowledged through the law and succeeded in making that happen.

‘It is all that we asked for following Harry’s death,’ Harry’s mum Charlotte Charles has said to the BBC.

So, as we turn to the New Year and Xmas, I have a quandary. I gave my mother an Advent present of a set of Christmas tree figures from the Westminster Cathedral online shop. The ornaments are made by groups of women in Indonesia and according to the website, making these items provides income and work. My mother hung them up and sent me a note saying: ‘Anne Boleyn won’t stop spinning’. The set of ornaments comprise King Henry VIII and his six wives. Two of them, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard he had beheaded.

Cllr Liam Mullone, a professional comic and councillor, dropped me an urgent note when he saw the photo: ‘How many years have to pass before brutal domestic abuse becomes kitsch?’

Am I smiling at the terror and pain of these women? Am I belittling the rage and madness of Henry Tudor and the fear of his courtiers? Am I, in enjoying a jolly, sweet, fabricisation of real flesh and blood people whose lives were characterised by torment, normalising violence?

I am currently engaged in a determined messaging campaign locally to encourage zero tolerance to physical violence in all its forms. Am I, in sending my mother this gift, part of the problem?

Cllr Mullone’s reply was profuse apologies. ‘remember, tragedy + time = comedy’, he said. I am still thinking about this. Should I ask my mother to remove her little soft-toy historical figures? Is it possible to enjoy the artistry, support those who made them while also being fiercely anti-violence and anti-beheading?