Arthur's killer parents: Alcoholic mother, 29, was jailed for 11 years

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes's biological mother was sentenced to 11 years in jail for stabbing her lover to death - leaving the tragic six-year-old at the mercy of his evil father and stepmother. 

Full details of Arthur's horrific childhood, raised by violent alcoholic Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, 29, were revealed during the harrowing nine-week murder trial of Thomas Hughes, 29, and his 32-year-old girlfriend Emma Tustin.

Arthur was pushed into his father's custody in February 2019 after Labinjo-Halcrow killed her partner Gary Cunningham, 29, by stabbing him 12 times with a kitchen knife in a drunken rage.

Hughes met mother-of-four Tustin online and the couple moved with Arthur into her home near Solihull in the West Midlands when the government declared a nationwide lockdown in March 2020.

Madelaine Halcrow said that Tustin was 'obsessed' about the idea Thomas would go back to Olivia, and that 'the only way she could get Olivia out of her life was by getting rid of Arthur'. 

Tustin, who had two of her children taken into care following a suicide attempt, repeatedly complained she could not cope with Arthur's behaviour during the period of confinement and begged Hughes to let him return to his grandparents. 

Even before his death, Arthur had witnessed numerous scenes of domestic violence. On one occasion Labinjo-Halcrow had stabbed Mr Cunningham while Arthur was present.

Arthur also witnessed terrible rows between his mother and his father Thomas Hughes and on one occasion ended up 'cowering under the covers' as they tore into one another.

Labinjo-Halcrow had been seeing Hughes and Mr Cunningham at the same time and Hughes was still having a sexual relationship with her up until the point that she killed Mr Cunningham.

They'd had a furious row on February 16 about her sleeping with Mr Cunningham and ended up physically wrestling over Arthur as Hughes took him away to his parents' house.

Labinjo-Halcrow was originally convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and jailed for 18 years at Birmingham Crown Court.

In August last year the conviction was overturned by The Court of Appeal after judges ruled she may have been acting in self-defence.

But following a retrial at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors once again found her guilty of manslaughter in July 2021 and this time was sentenced to 11 years.

The court heard Labinjo-Halcrow had been Mr Cunningham's on-and-off girlfriend.

At her original trial she claimed she had been the victim of sexual abuse, including rape, at the hands of her victim.

But Judge Simon Drew, QC dismissed those allegations and described her as 'someone who could be bullying and manipulative and prone to lies'.

After his mother's arrest, Arthur went to live with Hughes.

In July 2019, a doctor recorded Arthur as suffering from 'high anxiety'.

In November 2019, Arthur was in such a state that Mrs Hughes and Thomas spoke to both his school, Dickens Heath Community Primary in Shirley, and paediatrician Dr Sarah Dixon about it.

Arthur was said to be: clingy, having nightmares, obsessed with murder, anxious, babyish behaviour, trust issues. All were said to be completely normal for a child in the circumstances. 

Arthur had also said he was 'worried his Dad will kill him'. This was 'not normal'.

The doctor told Hughes that he should love and cherish his son, care for him, not subject him to change or treat his poor behaviour as naughtiness.

Arthur had variously been told that his mother had 'joined the army' and been sent to jail but that she would soon be released.

The school's Special Educational Needs Coordinator Aileen Carabine, told the hearing that Arthur was becoming 'fixated' with his dad disappearing from his life, being taken away from his dad and his dad killing him. 

Ms Carabine said Arthur started at the school in February 2019, but in March that year he had no idea his mother was in prison.

The teacher said that by October 2019 Arthur had 'deteriorated', and had become more 'reserved and anxious.' 'Not quite as smiley,' she added.

The school told Hughes he should be honest with his son after Halcrow was jailed in September 2019.

Two days after Arthur's sixth birthday, on Jan 6, 2020, Hughes went to the doctor to say the school were concerned by his clinginess and his obsession with soft toys, Tustin's barrister Mary Prior told the court.

She said teachers had said this was completely untrue.

On March 4, Arthur sobbed at school saying his father had taken away his favourite teddy. The school spoke to Hughes and told him this was wrong and above all not to discipline him.

On New Year's Eve, Hughes had gone 'toe-to-toe' with his father and they were screaming at one another because Hughes's parenting had been criticised.

This led to a breakdown of Hughes' relationship with his family.

Arthur was said to be missing his mother but Hughes banned all contact and this prompted a meltdown on Mother's Day.

Ms Prior said that Tustin repeatedly told Hughes that she could not cope and that either Arthur or both of them should return to his parents' house.

She said that during lockdown Hughes spent his time in bed, or playing computer games or going on long shopping trips leaving Tustin to deal with all the children.

She quoted a text sent from him to Tustin, then pregnant, at 5pm on June 13: 'I am naked on the bed waiting for you, all prepped and waiting for you to take my soul.'

Emma replies that he will be waiting a very long time.

At this stage he had started to deprive Arthur of food and water and the boy was screaming.

The 'noise and the cruelty' was not stopping him from becoming aroused, Ms Prior said.

During that heatwave, he would walk around eating ice creams in front of his starving child.

During May the school reached out to Hughes offering to have Arthur in school despite the lockdown.

He told them Arthur was really happy. When the school did re-open on June 8, he told them Arthur could not come in due to a headache.

She told the jury: 'Read the messages with care, she's regularly asking him 'please come back', 'please help', 'I can't cope', 'I'm crying', 'I'm broken', 'please take him back to his nan's'. 'She was saying again and again 'what do you want me to do with him?'.' Ms Prior says, in reply, Hughes told her to 'end him', 'finish him' and 'take his jaw off' but she did not do any of those things.

In one message, Hughes threatened to 'take his jaw off his shoulders' and told Tustin: 'Just gag him or something. Tie some rope around his mouth with a sock in it or something.'

She pointed out that Hughes had told police 'I couldn't hit a woman or her kids so Arthur took the brunt of my frustrations'.

This included head-butting him, pressure pointing his neck, putting his foot on his stomach, and assaulting him over and over again.

She quoted Hughes as saying it was a 'clash of egos' and that his way of crushing his son's ego was to do stuff like telling him he would take him to see his Nan and Granddad and then driving him around and telling him it would not happen. He also cut up the boy's favourite football strip in front of him. 

The FOUR missed chances to save little Arthur: How authorities IGNORED pleas about six-year-old boy's welfare from THREE family members and his teacher

Relatives of tragic Arthur Labinjo-Hughes today hit out at the failings of social workers and police who missed a raft of opportunities to save the six-year-old's life.

His maternal grandmother Madeleine Halcrow told MailOnline: 'Arthur was let down by social services and the West Midlands Police. There was an opportunity to save him and it wasn't taken.'

The nurse spoke out as Emma Tustin, 32, was convicted of murdering Arthur on June 17, 2020, during the Covid lockdown. Arthur's father Thomas Hughes, 29, was also found guilty of manslaughter for encouraging the killing, including by sending a text message to Tustin 18 hours before the fatal assault telling her 'just end him'. But he was cleared of murder. 

They were both found convicted of numerous child cruelty charges after subjecting him to systematic abuse which matched the 'medical definition of child torture', including being deprived of food, made to stand for 14 hours a day and poisoned with salt.  

The boy's family squarely blame Solihull Council's children's services, which failed to grasp a series of chances to stop Arthur's 'unimaginable' torture before he was murdered with 130 separate injuries.

Arthur's grandmother, Joanne Hughes, told the trial how she felt there was 'no one else to go to' after repeatedly raising her concerns with the authorities, while his uncle, Daniel, was even threatened with arrest over lockdown rules if he went back to the youngster's house to check up on him.

The child moved into his father's care after his mother, Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, 28, killed her new partner in February 2019. Hughes met mother-of-four Tustin online before the couple moved with Arthur into her home near Solihull in the West Midlands when the government declared a lockdown in March 2020.

Madeleine Halcrow said that Tustin was 'obsessed' about the idea Thomas would go back to Olivia, and that 'the only way she could get Olivia out of her life was by getting rid of Arthur'.

Tustin, who had two of her children taken into care following a suicide attempt, repeatedly complained she could not cope with Arthur's behaviour during lockdown and begged Hughes to let him return to his grandparents.

Arthur died on June 16, 2020 after suffering an 'unsurvivable head injury'. These are the four key chances the authorities missed to avert the tragedy: 

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