How can someone be so evil?

I can’t understand how certain human beings can be so evil. I can understand how Mugabe gets drunk with power. I can understand the gang member who has been commiting crimes for 20 years, killing someone and not caring.

But I can’t understand how a father could imprison his daughter for 24 years, let alone father six children with her. Josef Fritzl defies rational explanation, no matter how much people in Austria are searching for it.

Evil isn’t so scary when it is easy to identify – the Mugabes,  the violent drug crazed killers. But when it turns out to be your next door neighbour (or your economics lecturer!) it shakes your belief in human nature.

Nothing can ever repair the damage done to Fritzl’s family, but at a minimum I hope he spends longer in prison than they did.