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PURE EVIL
How Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’ killer stepmum exposed guilt at torturing boy, 6, to death with her crocodile tears
THIS is the sickening moment Arthur Labinjo-Hughes' killer exposed her guilt at murdering the youngster with crocodile tears.
Arthur, six, was tortured, poisoned with salt and starved by his dad Thomas Hughes and stepmum Emma Tustin.
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The evil couple waged a sick "campaign of cruelty" against the youngster in his tragic final months at their home in Solihull.
He was segregated for 14 hours a day and forced to sleep on the floor in a brutal struggle that matched the “medical definition of child torture”.
He was also poisoned with so much salt he was too weak to even put up a fight when Tustin battered him to death in June 2020.
Chilling bodycam footage showed Tustin crying as she claimed to officers Arthur had trashed the home and battered her over the past six months.
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She can be seen wiping her eyes as she tries to convince officers she is not to blame for Arthur's death.
But body language expert Dr Cliff Lansley has revealed the tell-tale signs the monster faked her sadness.
He told The Murder of Arthur Labinjo Hughes: A Faking It Special: "There’s no sadness going on there, she’s doing a few dry sniffs.
"She’s pretending to wipe tears which we can’t see even close up, no dampness around the eyes, but she’s trying to mimic sadness.”
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Tustin claimed Arthur "headbutted the floor on all fours" and "banged his head three or four times".
She added: "He banged his head three or four times. Obviously then I just picked him up.
"He knocked himself unconscious. I picked him up, put him on the sofa, poured water in his mouth."
Tustin is then heard accusing little Arthur of "battering his dad" and said he "smashed this house to pieces".
She even claimed Arthur told her he would get his "real mum" to kill her and claimed the frail, starved youngster had hit her.
But Dr Lansley says: "When somebody tells me there’s a headbutt it’s [mimics headbutting action], it’s a headbutt on the forehead.
"He’s six and she must be five foot seven, so what's he headbutting, your shins, your knees, this doesn’t fit, it seems to be fabricated.”
BRUTAL END
Arthur's frail and skeletal body was covered with 130 bruises and he suffered 93 different areas of injury - including on his head, arms, legs, feet and torso.
Chillingly, his final months on earth were captured in harrowing audio clips and recordings made by Tustin and Hughes.
Arthur could be heard wailing in one 23-second recording "no one loves me" and "no one is going to feed me".
Video footage also showed Arthur hours before he died waking up on the living room floor.
The emaciated youngster was said to be so frail he could barely pick up his bedding.
In another haunting clip, Tustin and Hughes can be seen eating ice cream on the sofa on a sweltering hot day while Arthur roasted in the corridor in a fluffy onesie.
Forensic Psychologist Kerry Danes tells the show: “This is more than just neglect, this is starvation but with a really aggravated element to it.
"There’s something really sadistic isn't there, in allowing the child to watch everybody else enjoy those treats but yet, he’s not allowed to have that.
"The message is, ‘you’re bad, you don’t deserve this and we’re going to do this in front of you and you can’t think about what you’re missing out on'.
"There’s an element of enjoying his discomfort, there really is, a big element of enjoying his discomfort.”
VILE COUPLE
During a lengthy trial, jurors were told how Arthur was once "cherished by all" while living with his dad in an annexe in the garden of his paternal grandparents.
He had been placed in his dad's care after his mum was jailed for 18 years for stabbing her boyfriend to death.
But his "stable" life began to spiral when Hughes embarked on a relationship with Tustin.
Due to the national lockdown, the couple moved into Tustin's home in Shirley with Arthur - sparking a tsunami of abuse that ended in the boy's life cruelly being snuffed out.
Arthur had been seen by social workers just two months before his death but they found no safeguarding concerns.
A cause of death was given as a "head trauma inflicted on him by an adult" consistent with being "vigorously shaken and his head banged repeatedly against a hard surface".
Doctors found he had more than six spoons worth of salt in his system - the highest level a medic had ever seen.
The amount was so substantial, the hospital at first believed their machinery was broken.
As well as suffering 93 areas of injury, Arthur also had 25 sites of bruising on his scalp, face, and neck that raised “serious concerns about non-accidental injury”.
The youngster was also found to have 20 areas of bruising on his arms and eight on his chest and stomach.
In his closing speech, prosecutor Jonas Hankin QC said Tustin and Hughes carried out a "systematic course of conduct designed to terrorise, degrade, neglect and harm Arthur physically and psychologically".
He added: "Together they denigrated and debased him, they dehumanised him."
"Wicked" Tustin was convicted of murder while "pitiless" Hughes was found guilty of manslaughter.
She was jailed for life with a minimum of 29 years while Hughes' sentence was increased this year to 24 years in prison.
Dr Lansley said: “We have Hughes the real father, he’s fuelled and enabled this situation, he’s allowed it to happen, and Tustin is a stepmum who tried to point the blame towards a six-year-old for the inability for her to manage his behaviour.
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“We’ve evolved as parents to care for our children, I’d die for my children, most people would do, but to stand by and let your child be mistreated and die.
"Now Tustin, she’s a stepmum, even talking about this makes me emotional, but the rationalisation of the bad behaviour is a poor defence, it’s heartbreaking to see parents that will let that happen.”
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