Belief at the heart of social services’ errors over Arthur Labinjo-Hughes: All mums are good

ANOTHER child dead at the hands of a brutal adult and we’re told that “lessons will be learned”.

But will they? After all, this tired old phrase was trotted out after the deaths of Baby P, Victoria Climbie and Daniel Pelka — to name but a tragic few — and yet here we are again, collectively wringing our hands over the needless death of yet another innocent at the hands of people who were supposed to love and nurture him.

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Little Arthur died from an ‘unsurvivable’ trauma to the head and had 130 injuries on his body[/caption]

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Baby P died after suffering eight months of abuse[/caption]

This time the victim was six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and, as ever, the temptation is to turn our heads away from the gruesome detail in case it upsets us.

But read and digest it we must, for if society as a whole doesn’t get angry about these heartbreaking cases then nothing will ever change.

While countless kids were enjoying lockdown in the warmth and protection of a loving family home, little Arthur was living a hellish existence at the hands of his monstrously cruel father and stepmother.

They beat him, forced him to stand for hours in a fluffy onesie in soaring temperatures, poisoned him with salt and just generally treated him like an unwanted animal.

He died from an “unsurvivable” trauma to the head and had 130 injuries on his body.

In one shocking text between his two tormentors, his father Thomas Hughes wrote: “Kid is a selfish little c*** . . . I’ll take his c***ing head right off his shoulders”, while his wholly evil stepmother Emma Tustin replied: “Just take his jaw off”.

That poor, poor child. I defy anyone to see the video footage of him sobbing: “Why does no one love me?” and fail to feel deeply disturbed.

The pandemic — that amorphous black hole in to which all avoidable failings are thrown — has been blamed for Arthur’s systematically cruel treatment being overlooked because of staff shortages.

But this is patent nonsense, because wider family members reported it repeatedly to various authorities and, following a call from his worried grandmother about bruising on Arthur’s body, social workers did visit the house.

They reportedly found a “boisterous and playful” boy who told them the bruise had been caused in a play fight with one of his stepmother’s four own sons — an explanation Tustin had coached him to give.

But the social workers fell for it and concluded it was a “happy household”.

Case closed. Oh dear.

As the unnamed father of one of Tustin’s children points out, she was “an old hand” at dealing with visits from social services, and “the home would be tidied and toys brought out for the kids”.

When he and his family also reported her to social services, he says she “turned on the waterworks” and inflicted injuries on herself, claiming he’d beaten her.

He adds: “Social services have blood on their hands. If they had heeded our warnings then little Arthur might still be alive.

“Unfortunately, in terms of child welfare and social services, it is a woman’s world.

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

The man is never believed.”

His observations are damning but I think they strike at the heart of what’s wrong with the mother-centric way many child welfare cases are handled.

Not all mothers are good people and, surely, anyone entering the home of someone whose behaviour has been reported so many times must deploy an industrial dose of suspicion in getting to the truth of the matter, rather than what might be a surface image being presented to them by an arch-manipulator?

They must enter a house as defenders of the child and no one else, and if that means temporarily treating the parent as guilty until proven innocent during the visit, then so be it.

Better that than leaving a child to rot in a hellish home.

Writing in yesterday’s Sun, the PM promised to bring in “Arthur’s Law” to ensure child killers die behind bars.

It’s a start, but the most imperative work lies in transforming social services so that kids like Arthur might get saved rather than become another deadly statistic.

And a great start would be to train up older people with life experience, common sense and a healthy amount of cynicism to walk in to a “happy household” and see if it’s true . . . or the devious theatrics of a monster merely playing at being a devoted parent.

Bra-no, Netflix

NETFLIX is bringing out a range of underwear inspired by its saucy hit show Bridgerton.

Really?

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Netflix is bringing out a range of underwear inspired by its saucy hit show Bridgerton[/caption]

Netflix

Regé-Jean Page as the Duke of Hastings and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne in the hit show[/caption]

I wasn’t aware that the characters actually wore any.

Bullies get jig lesson

TOM HOLLAND is to play legendary dancer Fred Astaire in a new movie.

Brit actor Tom, 25, was a keen gymnast and parkour runner (jumping across buildings, etc) while at school, but got bullied because he particularly loved dance and excelled at it.

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Tom Holland is to play legendary dancer Fred Astaire in a new movie[/caption]

But his skills landed him his first lead role in the theatre production of Billy Elliott, he’s also a box office smash as Spider-Man, and he’s dating his stunning co-star Zendaya.

Where did it all go wrong, Tom?

And now he’s landed the role of playing arguably the world’s greatest dancer.

Something tells me those school bullies aren’t laughing at him now.

Fame isn’t easy.

Labour need Ed start

THE general consensus on Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer seems to be “lovely bloke, but . . . ”

With the Government mired in accusations of sleaze, chaos and inaction, a more robust Opposition leader would be hammering it both at the dispatch box and in the polls, but the former lawyer is a little too measured and polite to land any blows.

So who is an obvious contender to potentially give Boris a bloody nose at PMQs?

Step forward ­– cha-cha-cha style – Ed Balls, former Strictly contestant, former MP and former Shadow Cabinet bruiser.

Since his Gangnam Style routine on the hit dance show, his popularity has soared with the public and his recent moving documentary about the country’s care crisis shows he has the necessary compassion to understand the problems people face in their everyday lives.

All he needs is an inclination to return and a comfy seat.

But when I interviewed him recently on Loose Women, I posed the question of a possible comeback and he dodged it by swiftly changing the subject.

You see? Once a politician, always a politician.

Don’t fluff lines

MIDDLE-class drug use has been fuelling the business of ruthless county lines gangs for the best part of a decade now.

I have written about it several times, the last being October 2020, when it emerged that “woke coke” is now a thing among wealthy users who claim their Class A drug of choice is sustainable.

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Middle-class drug use has been fuelling the business of ruthless county lines gangs for the best part of a decade now[/caption]

I wrote of “the alarming rise in ‘county lines’ gangs who use vulnerable kids to move their illegal goods around the country because they are less likely to be stopped by police.

“Have any of the woke coke-heads stopped to think that while their weekend high might be ethically sourced (laughable in itself) the delivery chain that brings it to their door might be less so?”

Now it seems the Prime Minister has finally woken up to this scourge on both the lives of young kids and society as a whole, and has donned police gear for a high-profile raid on the homes of various suspects.

Hmmm. I do hope his promise to finally tackle these brutal county lines gangs is seen through and doesn’t just prove an empty gesture designed to distract from the Government’s current failings.

Ferg-et it, Sarah

SARAH FERGUSON says she’s the most persecuted woman in royal history.

She said this with an entirely straight face from the protected, warm environs of the vast mansion she shares with ex-husband Prince Andrew in Windsor’s Great Park.

The Mega Agency

Fergie says she’s the most persecuted woman in royal history[/caption]

Anne Boleyn would be laughing her head off. If she had one.