The family of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, the six-year-old boy murdered by his stepmother after months of torture and abuse, have said they fear more children will die unless there is “total reform of social services”.
Relatives added they were disappointed at the scale of intervention taken since Arthur’s death, particularly after a national review found failures in local child protection reflected national shortcomings.
“The public were put through trauma, as much as us, by listening to everything that happened to Arthur, and we feel the action taken hasn’t matched that,” said Bernie Dixon, Arthur’s cousin. “They need to reform the whole service.”
She said the family have been frustrated over the past year by the reports in the media of other children who have died as a result of abuse or neglect, such as Star Hobson, Kyrell Matthews and Logan Mwangi.
“It makes me speechless. I feel the same about any child, and it feels like the list is going on,” said Dixon. “It just feels like everyone wants to talk about it, but nobody wants to do any action or make any significant change.”
She is setting up a charity in Arthur’s name, called Arthur’s Angels, to campaign for better protection of children and reform of social services.
Dixon wants to see the introduction of unannounced visits in cases involving children under 10, after it was revealed Arthur’s stepmother, Emma Tustin, coached him on what to say before a planned visit by Solihull social services two months before his death in June 2020.
The family have also campaigned for social workers to be given body cameras to record visits, something the chief executive of Solihull council, Nick Page, has also supported.
After a trial last year, Tustin was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 29 years for the murder of Arthur, while the boy’s father, Thomas Hughes, was given 24 years in prison for manslaughter.
Dixon, who is Arthur’s cousin on his mother’s side, said she “knows the perpetrators are responsible”, and did not directly blame the social workers involved but thought better training and resources could have saved him.
A year on from the trial that exposed the horrific treatment Arthur endured before his death, which included being physically assaulted, poisoned with salt and forced to stand in isolation for up to 14 hours a day, Dixon said the family were still struggling.
“We were heartbroken. And it seemed like people were insinuating Arthur wasn’t loved,” she said. “Arthur was idolised, by both sides of the family. And nothing I do can bring him back, but if we can implement some kind of change in his name, that might bring some comfort.”
after newsletter promotion
Family members raised concerns about Arthur to police and social services prior to his murder but felt lockdown left them helpless to intervene further, something they have all struggled to come to terms with.
“I was a foster carer myself, and what really crucified me when hearing about what happened to Arthur was that I’ve actually cared for other people’s children, and yet I couldn’t help my own family,” she said. “It cut really deep.”
She fondly looks back on the time she spent with Arthur when he came to visit his mother’s family in London, where Dixon lives.
“He was an angelic child, never misbehaving, just a lovely little boy,” she said. “It seems like a trivial thing, but one of the most painful things is seeing the milestones of his life that were posted on Facebook and knowing there is not going to be any more.”
For now, she is throwing herself into getting Arthur’s Angels established as a registered charity and trying to save more children: “It’s not about removing the children or attacking everybody and assuming everyone is guilty. It’s about trying to catch the ones who just keep slipping through.”