The Times - UK - 04.12.2021

the times | Saturday December 4 2021 33

Leading articles

hold”. When she tried to alert Arthur’s school, it

contacted social services which said it had no con-

cerns. Likewise the police, when contacted by Ar-

thur’s uncle, said it was a matter for social services

and threatened him with arrest if he broke lock-

down rules to visit his nephew.

There’s no doubt that lockdown was an extenu-

ating factor in this case. The fact that Arthur was

not in school meant there was no opportunity for

him to be observed closely every day. Instead the

school relied on phone calls to check on his well-

being, receiving assurances from Hughes that he

was “doing grand”. Similarly, after the meeting in

April, social services relied on phone calls and text

messages to check up on the family, rather than

face-to-face visits. Nonetheless it is surprising that

Arthur’s case had not raised red flags, given his

bleak family circumstances. His alcoholic mother

is serving 11 years in prison for manslaugher while

two of Tustin’s four children had previously been

removed from her care.

All this is now the subject of a serious case re-

view. Even so, there’s little doubt what it will con-

clude. We have been here many times before. As

with the inquiries into the similarly harrowing

deaths of Victoria Climbie in 2003, Baby P in 2009,

Daniel Pelka in 2013 and Ayeeshia Jane Smith in

2017, the review can be expected to find there was

insufficient co-ordination and a lack of data shar-

ing between relevant institutions, including social

workers, the school and police. The report will

surely also conclude that there should have been

more direct contacts with the child, less willing-

ness to believe the reassurances of a manipulative

parent and a greater urgency to intervene early.

These are familiar failures. The real question is

why after so many reviews they keep occurring.

Part of the answer clearly lies in a lack of resour-

ces and professionalism within social care. Local

authorities have largely maintained spending on

children’s services despite cuts in their central gov-

ernment grants of nearly 40 per cent in real terms

since 2010. But demands for children’s services

have soared. Even before the pandemic, child pro-

tection inquiries had risen 125 per cent over the

previous decade, while the number of looked after

children rose 24 per cent. Today there are 80,000

children in care. An independent review of child-

ren’s social care, launched in January to deliver on

a Conservative manifesto commitment to ensure

children get the support they need, is due to report

early next year. Let this be an opportunity finally

to reform the system that so tragically failed Ar-

thur Labinjo-Hughes.

It is scarcely comprehensible that this could

have happened in an English stadium a genera-

tion after a succession of disasters prompted re-

forms in security. Though Lady Casey does not ap-

portion blame, she urges that authorities act more

vigorously to prevent fans entering without tickets

and from carrying in dangerous items. She stress-

es the importance of a campaign by the FA to

change attitudes among supporters, and of aware-

ness of the special challenges of matches that are

of national significance.

The events of that day, and the narrowness of

escape from disaster, underline that crowd safety

is a wider task than merely excluding hooligans. In

his report into the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, in

which 97 spectators were crushed to death, Lord

Justice Taylor noted that his was the ninth inquiry

into the safety of spectators at football matches.

In the early days of professional football, specta-

tors were crowded into grounds with scarcely a

barrier to separate them. The inevitable happened

at an international match at Ibrox Park in Glas-

gow in 1902, when a stand collapsed and 26 people

died. Yet the disasters at Bradford City (56 deaths)

and Heysel stadium in Brussels (39 deaths) in 1985,

as well as at Hillsborough, ought to have changed

the culture completely. The Casey report is a dis-

piriting pointer that this has not happened.

Rather, regulation has proceeded only piecemeal

with controls on crowd exits, the construction of

stands and the sale of alcohol.

At any big event, however good-natured, it is es-

sential that crowd control be planned meticulous-

ly in advance. Spectators inevitably cannot see

what more than a handful of other people are do-

ing. At Hillsborough, as the Taylor report set out,

police opened a set of gates for fear of overcrowd-

ing outside the ground, and thereby caused a surge

of fans into two central pens. It was a catastrophic

error of organisation.

The inability of the police and other parties to

preempt trouble at Wembley too might well have

caused similar carnage. The Casey report must re-

inforce what is already known but has been insuf-

ficiently heeded: lethal crowd crushes are never a

natural disaster. Football fans and the wider public

across Europe will rightly demand that this lesson

be learnt in planning for future mass events.

outdoor adventures for more than 1.3 million

children, giving them the chance to scramble up

the UK’s tallest mountains, canoe across rivers

and camp under the stars. Using the wilderness as

a classroom, its staff and volunteers shepherd

more than 25,000 young people a year, usually in

school groups, around the Lake District, Snowdo-

nia and the Scottish Highlands.

Donations to Outward Bound go towards fund-

ing heavily subsidised outdoor experiences for the

most disadvantaged. Its ethos is to ensure that

children from deprived urban areas, including

those at risk of gang crime or expulsion from

school, can also access the great outdoors. All con-

tributions to the charity will doubled up to

£300,000 by Barratt Developments, the property

developers, and the Barratt Foundation.

Outward Bound participants have told The

Times how the courses helped turn them from

struggling teenagers to thriving young adults, the

excursions helping them build character, resil-

ience and confidence. For nearly two years the

pandemic has intermittently robbed young people

of experiences and fun, making the work of this

brilliant charity more important than ever. We

trust our ever-generous readers will agree.

Child Protection

The horrific murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes has exposed all too

familiar failures in an over-stretched children’s care system

The judge described it as “one of the most distress-

ing and disturbing cases he had ever had to deal

with”. Everyone who has read the harrowing de-

tails of the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes by

his stepmother, Emma Tustin, or seen the upset-

ting footage of the emaciated six-year old’s howls

of anguish will know why. Yesterday Mr Justice

Mark Wall QC sentenced Tustin, who refused to

appear in the dock, and Thomas Hughes, Arthur’s

father who was convicted of manslaughter for en-

couraging the killing, to minimum prison terms of

29 years and 21 years respectively. For Arthur’s

grandmothers, both of whom had raised the alarm

with social services, the long sentences will bring

some solace that justice has been done. But the

search for answers to the many troubling ques-

tions raised by this case has only just begun.

Whenever a child dies in such horrifying cir-

cumstances, particularly one who was on the ra-

dar of social services, it is clear that something has

gone wrong. In Arthur’s case, there is no question

that numerous opportunities to intervene were

missed. Joanne Hughes, his paternal grandmoth-

er, had called Solihull council in April last year to

report bruises on the boy’s shoulders. But when

social workers visited the home, they reported him

to be “very happy” and said it was a “happy house-

Crisis of Crowds

Disorder at the Euro 2020 final shows that safety at stadiums remains inadequate

The Euro 2020 football final, held at Wembley in

July, ought to have been an occasion for national

rejoicing. The pandemic was sufficiently con-

trolled to allow the competition to take place, albe-

it a year late. England had made it through to the

first final of an international tournament since

1966. In the event, it was perhaps merciful that En-
      gland lost to Italy. A collective failure of planning
      contributed to serious crowd trouble. Had En-
      gland prevailed in the penalty shoot-out, up to
      6,000 fans might have stormed the stadium to cel-
      ebrate just as ticket holders were trying to leave,
      thereby creating an immense risk to safety.
      These are among the findings of a sobering in-
      dependent report by Baroness Casey published
      yesterday. It sets out unsparingly the failure of the
      Football Association, the police and local author-
      ities to anticipate and defuse trouble. Some 2,000
      people got into the stadium without tickets, and
      emergency exits and access gates for disabled
      spectators were breached. Lady Casey says that
      invasion of the stadium by a “horde of ticketless,
      drunken and drugged-up thugs” might have
      caused death or serious injury.

Outwards and Upwards

Our Christmas appeal will give pandemic-hit children a taste of the great outdoors

It is one of the more depressing facts about

modern life that children on average spend less

time outdoors than prison inmates, such is the lure

of digital technology and the lack of access to

green spaces. The pandemic only made the prob-

lem worse, with pupils missing an average of 115

school days last year. One charity, however, is de-

termined to help youngsters rekindle their rela-

tionship with nature. The tireless work of the Out-

ward Bound Trust is being championed by The

Times and The Sunday Times Christmas appeal,

which launched last week.

Over its 80-year history the trust has provided

Daily Universal Register

France: The Republicans announce their
candidate for the presidential election.
Germany: The Christian Democratic Union
begins voting for a new leader.

Barbara Amiel (Lady
Black of Crossharbour),
pictured, writer, Friends
and Enemies: A Life in
Vogue, Prison, & Park
Avenue (2022), 81; Dina
Asher-Smith, sprinter,
100m and 200m UK
record-holder, 200m world champion (2019),
26; Ken Bates, former owner and chairman
of football clubs Chelsea and Leeds United,
90; Jeff Bridges, actor, Crazy Heart (2009),
72; Ann Christopher, sculptor in bronze and
steel, 74; Gus Christie, chairman,
Glyndebourne Opera, 58; Richard Deverell,
director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 56;
Alex Finlayson, playwright, Misfits (1996),
70; Nia Griffith, Labour MP for Llanelli,
shadow secretary of state for Wales (2020-
Nov 2021), 65; Lord (Philip) Hammond of
Runnymede, Conservative MP for
Runnymede and Weybridge (1997-2019),
chancellor of the Exchequer (2016-19), 66;
Chris Hillman, musician, original bassist
with the Byrds, So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’
Roll Star (1967), 77; Gemma Jones, actress,
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), 79; Clive Leach,
chairman, Durham County Cricket Club
(2004-16), 87; Guy Parker, chief executive,
Advertising Standards Authority, 52; Gary
Rossington, guitarist, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sweet
Home Alabama (1974), 70; Prof Martin
Weale, economist, 66; Jay-Z, rapper, The
Black Album (2003), and businessman, 52.

In 1893 the physicist John Tyndall died, aged

73. His discoveries included what is now
    known as the greenhouse effect.

José Carreras, pictured,
tenor, 75; John Altman,
composer and arranger,
Little Voice (1998), 72;
Scott Brash, equestrian,
Olympic gold medallist
(2012), 36; Viscount
(Robin) Bridgeman, 91;
Laura Cha, chairwoman, Hong Kong
Exchanges and Clearing, 72; David
Cordingly, naval historian, 83; Prof Richard
Crowther, chief engineer, UK Space Agency,
61; José Cura, operatic tenor, 59; Shikhar
Dhawan, cricketer, India, 36; Joan Didion,
author, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968),
87; Irene Dorner, chairwoman, housebuilder
Taylor Wimpey, 67; Lord (Alf) Dubs, Labour
MP (1979-87), chairman, Broadcasting
Standards Commission (2001-03), 89; Eddie
“The Eagle” Edwards, ski jumper, 58; Prof
Sheldon Glashow, theoretical physicist,
Nobel prizewinner (1979), 89; Sajid Javid,
health and social care secretary,
Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, 52; Hanif
Kureishi, playwright, Venus (2006), novelist
and screenwriter, The Buddha of Suburbia
(1990), 67; Ronnie O’Sullivan, snooker
player, six-time world champion (2001, 2004,
2008, 2012, 2013, 2020), 46; Lewis Pugh,
maritime advocate and endurance swimmer,
the first person to complete a long-distance
swim in every ocean, 52; Johan Renck, film
director, Chernobyl (2019), 55; Joanna
Rowsell, two-time Olympic gold medal-
winning cyclist (2012, 2016), 33; Matthew
Taylor, chief executive, Royal Society of Arts
(2006-May 2021), 61.

“Optimism is the faith that leads to
achievement; nothing can be done without
hope.” Helen Keller, American writer and
social activist, Optimism (1903)

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