Arthur’s Murder: A Failure of Child Protection in England During the 2020 Spring Lockdown

The facts are not in dispute. Six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was beaten at home in the town of Shirley in the West Midlands of England by his stepmother, Emma Tustin, on 16 June 2020, only to be declared dead the following day at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. He had been staying there with Tustin and his biological father, Thomas Hughes, since the imposition of lockdown in March 2020, while his biological mother, Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, served an eleven-year prison sentence for manslaughter. Emma Tustin, the mother of four children, has been described as a maladjusted and manipulative woman, who enjoyed a self-indulgent lifestyle. She had a history of unstable relationships and of episodes of self-harm that led to prolonged stays in hospital. Tustin and Hughes first met online after Arthur’s mother was sent to prison, and the toxic pair moved in together soon thereafter. On 3 December 2021, Tustin was sentenced at Coventry Crown Court, after a 37-day court case, to a minimum term of 29 years in prison for murder, while Hughes received 21 years for manslaughter. Both sentences have been deemed too lenient and may be increased, while an independent review of the case is being undertaken by Solihull Local Child Safeguarding Partnership.

Arthur stood little chance, despite the warning signs of impending danger. A Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services practitioner decided in March 2020 that he had no mental health issues. In April 2020, his paternal grandmother contacted social services about unexplained bruising on Arthur’s back, but a social worker concluded after a home visit that there were ‘no safeguarding concerns’. Subsequent concerns from other family members (uncle, stepfather) were not acted upon. Arthur was often deprived of food and water, forcefully fed with salty food on occasion, forced to stand for long periods of time in a hallway , and repeatedly beaten by his stepmother, while his father watched on and did nothing to protect him. At the time of his death, a total of 130 bruises were counted on Arthur’s body.

In England, a child is defined as someone under the age of 18. Child protection legislation in England dates back to the Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act 1889, also known as the ‘Children’s Charter’. A succession of Children Acts, in 1948, 1975, 1989, and 2004 established the legal framework for the child protection system in England. The Children Acts of 1948 and 1975 were preceded by well-publicised cases of child abuse, in the murders of Dennis O’ Neill, 12, in 1945 and that of Maria Colwell, 7, in 1973. The murder of Dennis O’ Neill by his foster father led to the first formal public inquiry of a child death in 1945. The death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2001 was followed by another public inquiry by Lord Laming, whose report was published in 2003 and went on to inform the Children Act 2004.  The deaths of Victoria and that of Peter Connelly (Baby P) in 2008, both in the London Borough of Haringey, are among more recent high-profile cases of children who needlessly lost their lives from the lapses of child protection officials.

Although there are established structures and pathways for child protection, it is up to frontline social sector professionals, including social workers, schoolteachers, doctors/nurses, and the police, to initiate either safeguarding (prevention of harm) or child protection (protection from ongoing harm) procedures as required. This requires an awareness by all individuals and organisations that work with, or otherwise encounter, children to report their concerns about potential victims of child abuse to the relevant authorities. While certain groups of children may be considered particularly ‘at risk’ and thus vulnerable to child abuse, depending on their personal characteristics and home circumstances, no child is completely immune to inflicted harm.

The four main types of child abuse are physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect, each of which can be accompanied by a number of warning symptoms, abnormal behaviours, and physical signs of neglect or injury- at times also corroborated by the child’s own account of events.  For example, inflicted injuries can often be differentiated from accidental injuries by inconsistent stories, implausibility when related to the child’s developmental capabilities, and also by their actual location and physical appearance.

 Child abuse can be reported by a number of routes- by phone, online, or in person. In cases of immediate danger to a child’s life, a phone call to 999, the emergency services number, is recommended. In less pressing circumstances, the children’s social care team at the local council, the police (via a call to 101 or a visit to the police station), the NSPCC, or Crimestoppers are possible points of first contact. The child may on occasion have to be taken away from home under an Emergency Protection Order, which grants parental authority to the local council. The decision to remove a child from its parents or carers requires some forethought, as demonstrated by unfortunate instances of overzealous removal of children from their homes in Cleveland in 1987 and in Rochdale and Orkney in 1990, all following unfounded allegations of parental sex abuse. Next steps might include a Section 47 (Children Act 1989) investigation by children’s social services. Children at risk of significant harm require a multi-agency child protection plan and are allocated a case worker to help implement the plan, progress on which is judged at periodic child protection case conferences. Care proceedings, a court case, and care orders may help decide the necessary child protection measures to be adopted in a specific situation.

The formal investigation of possible child abuse usually entails collaborative working and joint decision making through a multidisciplinary multi-agency approach, although a single-agency (police) investigation may be chosen in certain situations. Information about the child is commonly shared through a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH). The process can be time-consuming, requiring the compilation of expert reports and a synthesis of all available information before a potentially life-changing decision can be made.

Arthur’s death unfortunately shares a number of features in common with other children who have been let down by the social care sector.  Warning signs were too readily dismissed, the risks of being in a dysfunctional home were overlooked, information was not shared between safeguarding agencies, and Arthur seemed reluctant to talk about his own predicament. A lack of surveillance and the failure to follow-up Arthur’s welfare led to the perpetration of abuse, which continued unnoticed under the cover of a lockdown, despite existing child protection protocols that could have saved his life. Arthur’s death is yet another example where the system let down a vulnerable child most in need of protection. But then any system is only as good as the people who work in it.  Child protection may be a difficult and emotionally taxing business, but the advice of a source I cannot recall for the moment seems particularly relevant: “Assume nothing, believe nothing, check everything”.

Ashis Banerjee