She called herself a victim. She claimed she was the one suffering. But the truth is that Emma Tustin, a cold-eyed 32-year-old with a heart as black as the bruises she inflicted, was a monster who systematically destroyed a defenceless six-year-old boy in a campaign of cruelty so vile that hardened police officers needed counselling just to cope with what they uncovered.

Little Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, a bright-eyed, blond-haired child who loved superheroes and wanted nothing more than to be loved, endured hell on earth in the final months of his short life. Starved, poisoned with salt, beaten, isolated, and finally murdered by the woman who should have protected him — his father’s new partner — Arthur’s broken body told a story of unimaginable torment that still chills the soul more than four years later.

Tustin’s refusal to even appear in the dock for her sentencing in December 2021 was the ultimate insult to Arthur’s memory. While her victim’s family sat in court, steeling themselves for justice, the wicked stepmother cowered in her cell like the coward she is, too self-obsessed to face the consequences of her evil. It was, as the judge noted, the final chapter in her grotesque spectacle of self-pity.

I sat through every harrowing day of her trial at Coventry Crown Court in late 2021. I watched as prosecutors laid bare the systematic torture of a little boy who had already lost so much. And I can say without hesitation that the pure, calculated evil of Emma Tustin is something I will carry with me for the rest of my days.

A childhood shattered by lockdown and monsters

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was just six when Britain plunged into the first Covid lockdown in March 2020. His mother, Olivia Labinjo-Halcrow, was already in prison for killing her partner. So Arthur was sent to live with his father, Thomas Hughes, 29, and Hughes’s new girlfriend, Emma Tustin, at their home in Cranmore Road, Shirley, Solihull.

What should have been a fresh start became a living nightmare.

Within weeks, concerned relatives noticed Arthur had changed. The once-happy little boy appeared withdrawn, bruised, and terrified. He told family members he was being hit. He begged to go back to his grandmother. Social services were alerted multiple times — yet the warnings were dismissed.

By the time lockdown restrictions eased slightly, Arthur was a shadow of himself. Tustin and Hughes had isolated him from the rest of the household. He was forced to “stand on the naughty step” for up to 14 hours a day. He was made to eat meals laced with salt until he vomited. He was slapped, kicked, shaken, and had his head banged against hard surfaces.

Tustin even recorded more than 200 audio files on her phone — not out of concern, but seemingly to document and relish his distress. In one chilling clip played in court, Arthur can be heard sobbing and pleading: “No one loves me.” In another, he cries out in pain after being assaulted.

Medical experts later testified that the injuries on Arthur’s tiny body — more than 130 separate bruises, cuts and marks — met the clinical definition of child torture.

On June 16, 2020, the abuse reached its horrific climax. Tustin, alone with Arthur while Hughes was out, subjected the boy to a final, fatal assault. She shook him violently and repeatedly slammed his head against a hard surface. Arthur suffered catastrophic brain injuries described by pathologists as “unsurvivable.”

He collapsed and never regained consciousness. Paramedics rushed him to hospital, but it was too late. Arthur died the following day, June 17, 2020.

Post-mortem examinations revealed the full horror: salt poisoning, dehydration, malnutrition, and a brain injury so severe it was likened to a high-speed car crash.

The trial that broke everyone who heard it

When the case finally reached court in October and November 2021, the evidence was so disturbing that jurors were told they would be excused from jury service for the rest of their lives. Detectives who had pored over the photographs, the audio recordings, and the autopsy reports were offered counselling.

I sat in the public gallery day after day, watching Tustin’s face as the prosecution dismantled her web of lies. She claimed Arthur had fallen down the stairs. She said his bruises were from “play fighting.” She even tried to blame the little boy himself.

But the jury saw through her. On December 1, 2021, Emma Tustin was convicted of murder. Thomas Hughes, who had encouraged the violence and inflicted beatings of his own, was found guilty of manslaughter.

The following day, December 2, Tustin refused to leave her cell to hear the verdicts read out in full. She had already attempted suicide during the trial. Her self-pity knew no bounds.

At sentencing on December 3, 2021, Mr Justice Wall delivered a withering condemnation. Tustin was jailed for life with a minimum term of 29 years. Hughes received 21 years for manslaughter.

The judge described Tustin’s actions as “particularly high seriousness.” He noted her complete lack of remorse and her obsession with portraying herself as the victim.

“Arthur was subjected to cruelty and degradation over a sustained period,” the judge said. “You showed him no love, no compassion, no mercy.”

Yet even as the words echoed around the courtroom, Tustin hid away, too cowardly to face Arthur’s devastated family.

The self-pitying monster who only cried for herself

What struck me most during the trial was Tustin’s extraordinary capacity for self-pity. Her former cellmate, Elaine, later revealed that in the weeks they shared a cell, Tustin never once mentioned Arthur. Instead, she spoke endlessly about how unfair her own situation was.

She complained about the food. She worried about her own safety in prison. She cried for herself.

Even after her conviction, reports emerged that Tustin had tried to kill herself again. She was placed on suicide watch. Fellow inmates reportedly threw salt at her in disgust — a grim echo of the salt she had forced down Arthur’s throat.

One former partner of Tustin came forward to say he had warned social services years earlier that she was dangerous around children. His concerns, like those of Arthur’s relatives, were ignored.

Arthur’s biological mother, from her prison cell, spoke of her heartbreak at not being able to protect her son. His grandmother and uncle fought desperately to have him removed from the toxic household, only to be told there was “no immediate risk.”

The failures of the system that should have saved Arthur have since been laid bare in multiple reviews. Three “critical missed opportunities” by police and social services were identified in a 2024 report. Warnings from family, teachers, and neighbours were not acted upon.

Yet nothing can bring back the little boy who loved drawing, who wanted to be a superhero, and who, in his final days, told relatives he thought his father was going to kill him.

A legacy of evil that still haunts

More than five years on from that dreadful day in June 2020, the case of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes continues to shock and outrage the nation. It exposed the darkest corners of domestic abuse, the failures of child protection during lockdown, and the capacity of one woman to inflict suffering on a scale that defies comprehension.

Tustin remains behind bars, serving her minimum 29-year term. Appeals against the length of both sentences were heard in 2022. The Court of Appeal refused to increase Tustin’s term but upheld it as appropriate for the horror she unleashed.

Hughes’s sentence was increased slightly in a separate ruling.

For Arthur’s family, there is no real justice — only the knowledge that the woman who murdered their beloved boy will spend decades locked away, far longer than Arthur was ever allowed to live.

As I left Coventry Crown Court on that cold December day in 2021, the images from the trial replayed in my mind: the photographs of Arthur’s bruised body, the audio of his desperate cries, the cold, emotionless face of Emma Tustin as she spun her lies.

I have covered many murder trials in my career. Some stay with you. This one will never leave.

Because the evil of Emma Tustin was not the result of a momentary loss of control. It was deliberate, sustained, and relished. She took a vulnerable child and broke him in every possible way — physically, emotionally, and finally, fatally.

And when the moment came to stand and face what she had done, she couldn’t even do that.

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes deserved so much better. He deserved love, safety, and a chance at a happy life. Instead, he got monsters.

His story must never be forgotten. Not just as a warning about the dangers of domestic abuse and inadequate safeguarding, but as a reminder of the pure innocence that was stolen — and the wicked stepmother whose self-pity could not hide her guilt for a single second.

Arthur’s smiling face, captured in family photos before the horror began, still appears in campaigns for better child protection. His name is invoked whenever failures in the system are discussed.

But for those of us who sat through that trial, the memory is more visceral. We heard the evidence. We saw the pain in the eyes of those who loved him. And we know that Emma Tustin’s refusal to show her face in court was not just cowardice — it was the final, pathetic insult to a little boy who suffered more than any child ever should.

May Arthur rest in peace. And may the woman who destroyed him never know a moment’s true peace for the rest of her miserable life.