Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and our broken child protection system

The official sentencing remarks on the short life and cruel death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes begin with this trigger warning from the judge: ‘This is one of the most distressing and disturbing cases with which I have had to deal.’

This week Emma Tustin was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 29 years for the murder of her stepson Arthur last year. Thomas Hughes, her partner and Arthur’s father, was sentenced to 21 years after being found guilty of manslaughter. Both were also convicted on several charges of child cruelty. In his sentencing remarks the judge described their behaviour as ‘cruel and inhuman’. And no wonder.

In the space of just three months, this poor little six-year-old boy acquired 130 bruises, a number described by the paediatrician who tried to save him as ‘staggering.’

Mr Justice Wall’s description of his battered body and the psychological horror that transformed a once happy boy into a terrified plaything for morally voided monsters would challenge any belief in God above:

‘He was emaciated.