10 2GM Saturday December 4 2021 | the times
News
The mother of a boy murdered by his
stepmother said yesterday that his
death had destroyed her life.
Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, who was jail-
ed two years ago for stabbing her part-
ner to death, used a victim-impact state-
ment written from her cell to describe
how the killing of her six-year-old son
Arthur’s mother tells of grief
as killers are jailed for decades
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes had left her
bereft. “Arthur was my life and my
reason for living,” she said.
Her son ended up in the care of his
father, Thomas Hughes, and later his
girlfriend Emma Tustin. Coventry
crown court was told that the couple
oversaw a “campaign of cruelty” in
which the boy was isolated, forced to eat
salt-laced meals and suffered 130 inju-
ries. Tustin, 32, inflicted an unsurviva-ble brain injury at her home in Solihull,
West Midlands, on June 17 last year.
The unemployed mother of four was
found guilty of murder on Thursday
and was yesterday jailed for life with a
minimum term of 29 years. She refused
to leave her cell for sentencing. Hughes,
29, a labourer, was sentenced to 21 years
after being found guilty of manslaugh-
ter after sending a text to Tustin 18
hours before the fatal assault that read:“Just end him.” Both were also convict-
ed on several charges of child cruelty.
Madeleine Halcrow, Arthur’s mater-
nal grandmother, wept as she read the
statement written by her daughter from
prison. “It is impossible to put into
words what Arthur’s loss has done to
me,” Labinjo-Halcrow said. “I feel hol-
low every day, I feel as though I’m walk-
ing around with all the lights turned off.
He was the light of my life, the best parts
of me. He was a precious, precious gift.”
Labinjo-Halcrow also released a
series of photographs of Arthur before
he fell into the hands of Tustin and
Hughes. The pictures show him smiling
as he enjoys time with his mother and
in one he looks delighted as he strolls
with a Build-a-Bear teddy in a bag.
Members of the jury and court staff
wept as Labinjo-Halcrow’s statement
was read. In it, she told of her sadness at
seeing photographs and videos of a frail
Arthur. “My son’s bright blue efferves-
cent eyes have lost their sparkle,” she
said. “They were not smiling any more.
They took his sparkle from him and
then they took him from this world. My
child, my little love, he was defenceless.
He was killed. His short life stolen.”
Mr Justice Wall said the case was
“one of the most distressing and dis-
turbing” he had experienced. He said
neither defendant had shown remorse
and that their actions were “spiteful
and sadistic”. He drew attention to the
fact that Tustin’s own two children
“lived a perfectly happy life in that
house” yards from where Arthur was
subjected to “unthinkable abuse”.
Labinjo-Halcrow, a former pupil at
Solihull School, had shown talent as a
debater before becoming a lance corpo-
ral in the Territorial Army and studying
philosophy, politics and economics at
Nottingham University. She met
Thomas Hughes and dropped out in
her final year when she became preg-
nant with Arthur. The couple separated
and she developed an alcohol problem.
She was jailed for manslaughter after
stabbing Gary Cunningham, 29, in a
drunken rage at the flat in Birmingham
where she lived with Arthur in 2019,
and is serving an 11-year term. Hughes
took custody and began a relationship
with Tustin. They moved in together at
the start of the first lockdown in March
last year. Yesterday the judge said of
Tustin: “You wanted Thomas Hughes
so he could provide for you and your
own children but did not want to be
troubled by Arthur any longer.”
Horrific murder has exposed all too
familiar failures, leading article, page 33Neil Johnston
Midlands Correspondent
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in the care ofNews Boy’s murder
‘Black widow’
relished weeks
of child torture
Profile
D
escribed by Arthur
Labinjo-Hughes’s
grandmother as only
having “pity for herself ”,
Emma Tustin could not
face the relatives who loved him as
she was sentenced in court (Neil
Johnston writes).
It was typical of a woman who
waited 12 minutes to call an
ambulance after fatally injuring the
six-year-old and described by some
who knew her as a “black widow”.“Evil” and “manipulative”, Tustin,
32, relished torturing Arthur and
was described as a ruthless
predator who wanted full control
over Arthur’s father.
The mother of four is said to have
had no maternal instincts and
instead exploited her children for
benefits, spending the money on
tattoos, clothing and jewellery.
She was also controlling and on
one occasion is said to have thrown
herself out of a bedroom window,
breaking her leg, to stop her former
partner going out with a friend.
In 2018 she went missing and
prompted a police appeal. She had
previously survived a suicide
attempt after she jumped from the
top floor of a car park. She spent
five months in hospital.
Tustin, who had two of her
children taken into care after one
suicide attempt, was shown