Arthur Labinjo-Hughes: Court of Appeal to review killers' jail terms

The jail sentences given to Arthur Labinjo-Hughes' killers were too lenient, the attorney general says.

The boy's stepmother Emma Tustin was jailed for at least 29 years for his murder and Arthur's father Thomas Hughes got 21 years for manslaughter.

Suella Braverman said the sentences had been referred to the Court of Appeal as she believed they were "too low".

Arthur, six, died from an unsurvivable brain injury inflicted by Tustin at their West Midlands home.

The couple's trial heard Arthur had been poisoned with salt, subjected to regular beatings, denied food and drink and made to stand for hours alone in the hallway of their house in Solihull.

The fatal assault happened on 16 June 2020 and the schoolboy, whose body was also covered in 130 bruises, died in hospital the next day.

Ms Braverman said: "Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes grossly abused their position of trust and subjected an innocent child, who they should have been protecting, to continued emotional and physical abuse.

"I understand how distressing the public have found this case, but it is my job to decide if a sentence appears to be unduly lenient based on the facts of the case.

"I have carefully considered the details of this case, and I have decided to refer the sentences to the Court of Appeal as I believe them to be too low."

A date for the court hearing is yet to be set.

As Arthur lay dying, his stepmother took a photograph on her mobile phone and sent the image to Hughes, the trial at Coventry Crown Court was told.

Jurors heard Tustin, 32, carried out the fatal assault by violently shaking the schoolboy and repeatedly banging his head on a hard surface.

While Hughes, 29, was not present then, he was culpable in Arthur's death as he "encouraged" violence against his son and dealt out beatings, the court was told.

Jurors were also shown footage and listened to hours of audio recorded in the house in the final weeks of the young boy's life.

This included CCTV footage from the morning before he was fatally injured, where he appeared to limp and cry and struggled to fold a duvet he had been given to sleep on downstairs.

During sentencing earlier this month, Mr Justice Wall described the trial as "without doubt one of the most distressing and disturbing cases I have had to deal with".

He said less than three months after moving in with Tustin at the start of the first national lockdown, Arthur had been left "broken" from exposure to a campaign of "acute or prolonged abuse".

Tustin, described as manipulative and calculating, was unanimously convicted after an eight-week trial, with the boy's "pitiless" father found guilty of his manslaughter, after encouraging the killing.

Hughes' infatuation for Tustin had "obliterated" any love for his son, Mr Justice Wall said.

Arthur had lived with his mother Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow after she and Hughes split up not long before his second birthday.

But in 2019, after she was jailed for the manslaughter of her partner Gary Cunningham, Arthur was left in the sole care of his father.

In a victim impact statement, the boy's mother said his death had destroyed her life.

The circumstances of Arthur's treatment and killing prompted an outpouring of grief and rage across the UK.

And days after his killers were jailed, hundreds attended a vigil near the home where he died.

The government has ordered a national review into the six-year-old's death, "to protect other children from such evil crimes".

A local review is also looking into the circumstances, after it emerged social workers from Solihull Council had visited his home in the months before he died and found no issues, despite relatives raising concerns.

The Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme allows anyone to lobby the attorney general to refer a case to the Court of Appeal for review.

Experienced judges then consider the term given to an offender and how it compares with any relevant guidelines on sentencing and previous similar crimes.

Posting on Twitter, Solihull MP Julian Knight, who had asked the attorney general to challenge the sentences, said he "wholly welcomed" her decision to refer them.

"The brutal murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes has broken many hearts within Solihull," the Conservative MP said.

"It is my view that both Emma Tustin [and] Thomas Hughes should be given whole life sentences for the cruel and vicious way they treated Arthur.

"I hope the Court of Appeal will be of the same opinion."

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