Arthur Labinjo, a 17-year-old boy from Arua in Uganda was left with no choice but to flee his life of poverty and squalor. He eventually found himself living on the streets after a friend died in their arms during one of the many protests that have plagued his home country for more than two decades.
Arthur Labinjo is a 14-year-old boy who lives in Britain. His stepmother, Angela Hughes, called the police on Arthur after he skipped school and was found riding his bike without a helmet.
Emma Tustin, 32, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 29 years for the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Huges. (Photo courtesy of PA)
A cruel stepmother chopped up her partner’s six-year-old son’s football jersey in front of his face before torturing and murdering him.
Today, Emma Tustin, 32, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 29 years for the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Huges.
Weeks before his death, the defenseless boy was abused, malnourished, poisoned, and tortured.
Tustin smashed Arthur’s head against a hard surface at her house in Solihull, West Midlands, in June last year, causing ‘unsurvivable’ brain trauma.
She grabbed her phone and snapped images of the youngster as he lay dying in the hallway, which she sent to his father.
Thomas Hughes, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison for manslaughter, had texted her hours before saying, “Just finish him.”
Before his death, Arthur was forced-fed salt-laced meals and given a potentially deadly quantity, according to the jury.
After being startled and having his head banged against a surface at home, Arthur died from’survivable’ brain damage (Picture: PA)
Tustin blamed her loss on the innocent six-year-old kid, as well as rifts between her and his father (Picture: PA)
The child had been living with his mother until recently, who is now in jail for murdering her boyfriend in a drunken and drug-fueled frenzy.
When individuals he cared about abandoned him, he felt vulnerable, experienced nightmares, and got nervous.
Tustin and Hughes, 29, instead of showing love and support, tried to depict his behavior as increasing and then inflicted horrible abuse on him, according to the court.
Arthur was ‘forced to live a solitary and lonely existence,’ and was obliged to stand in the corridor alone for the most of the day – on at least one occasion for nearly 14 hours.
He was not permitted to engage with his parents or their children in a nice manner, was not allowed to return to school after June, and was forced to sleep on the hard floor below without a mattress.
Hughes remained in the hallway for hours in a heavy onesie on one of the hottest days of the year, only to discover that his father and Tustin had purchased themselves ice creams without buying him one.
Thomas Hughes, 29, made repeated threats to kill his own kid, claiming he would ‘end him.’ (Photo courtesy of PA)
Mr Justice Wall, who sentenced the couple at Coventry Crown Court, described the case as “one of the most sad and frightening instances” he had ever seen.
‘Anyone who attended this trial for a very long time will remember a lot of horrible tales, like Tustin ripping up Arthur’s Birmingham City football jersey,’ he added.
‘Your treatment of him was often bitter and at times vicious,’ he continued.
‘In your text messages to one another, you often referred to Arthur as a c*** or a crap, or as Satan or Hitler.’
‘According to the prosecution, your actions dehumanized Arthur in your view.’ That, in my opinion, accurately describes your behavior.
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‘The less human he seemed to be, the more latitude you had to mistreat him.’ This isn’t a situation where you were unfit parents who couldn’t care for your children properly.
‘Hughes, it seems that you were a good father to Arthur until you were enamored with Tustin to the point that you lost all love for him.
‘You, Tustin, lavished love on your own two children right up to the day you were arrested.
‘It’s a startling aspect of this case that your children, Tustin, enjoyed a completely normal existence in that home while this heinous mistreatment to Arthur was going on.’
‘This cruel and inhumane treatment of Arthur was a conscious choice by both of you to ignore his pleas for assistance and dismiss them as misbehavior because it was more convenient for you to avoid spending time caring for him in the manner he required.
‘You both understood the consequences of your actions yet continued to do them nonetheless.’
Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, Arthur’s biological mother, is in jail for the murder of her lover (Picture: PA)
‘Your shared efforts at trial to claim that you just realized how awful your behavior toward him after the fact were blatant and self-serving falsehoods,’ he said.
‘At the time, you both understood the degree of his suffering and were pitiless and unconcerned about it.
‘You blamed him for your miscarriages and rifts between Hughes and yourself.’ In effect, you held Arthur accountable for all of your troubles.
‘You were emotionless and uncaring about Arthur’s situation. Rather, you wasted little time in spreading a false story to anybody who would listen, in which Arthur was the villain of the piece, responsible for his own injuries and making your life terrible.
‘You are a manipulative lady who would fabricate any falsehood to preserve her own skin and transfer the responsibility to anybody.’
Hughes made a “series of vivid and disturbing threats” against Arthur, according to the judge.
He promised to ‘take his c** jaw off his shoulders,’ ‘fill him in,’ ‘dash his meals off his head,’ and ‘end him’ in messages to Tustin.
These threats were sometimes heard by persons the father didn’t know. Tustin’s hairdresser and boyfriend overheard him threatening to decapitate Aruthur and use his skull as a football only hours before he died.
Arthur had been visited by social workers only two months before his murder, it was revealed during the trial.
They came to see him after his paternal grandmother, Joanne Hughes, expressed concerns, but found that there were ‘no safeguarding issues.’
Arthur was “failed by the very people” responsible with keeping him safe, according to Ms Hughes, a secondary school teacher.
Her ‘happy and flourishing’ grandchild, she added, would ‘be living today’ if her son hadn’t met Tustin.
Following a study of the failures surrounding Arthur’s death, the government has said that it will not hesitate to take action.
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Arthur Labinjo was a man who had been accused of murdering his wife, Stepmum. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Hughes is Arthur’s mum. Reference: arthur labinjo hughes mum.
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