Accountability: Arthur Labinjo-Hughes - Writing Wednesday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
I'm sure that most of you have heard about the absolutely tragic story of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes but if you haven't, here is a brief overview.
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, a 6 year old boy from Solihull in the West Midlands, was killed by his stepmother and father in June 2020. Arthur moved into his father's home during the 2020 lockdown after his mother was sent to prison. The lockdown meant that Arthur was trapped in a home where both his stepmother and father were physically abusive towards him. Emma Tustin, Arthur's stepmother, did not see Arthur as one of her own and did not accept him into the family as a result. Consequently, Arthur was isolated from the rest of the family and children in the home. He was made to stand in the corridor on his own for up to 14 hours. He was also excluded from his bedroom and made to sleep on the floor in the living room. He was forced to eat salt-laced meals and was repeatedly beaten for supposed bad behaviour. Eventually, Arthur, who was tired and emaciated, could no longer withstand the brutal abuse. He died of a brain injury, inflicted by the people who had the responsibility of caring for him. The court played videos that Emma Tustin had filmed herself of the abuse that she had inflicted on Arthur. The sentences that seemed to be ringing in everyone's ears were "No one loves me" and "No one's going to feed me!" Said by Arthur himself.
Emma Tustin was convicted of murdering Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and will be serving a minimum of 29 years in prison. Thomas Hughes, Arthur's father, was convicted of Arthur's manslaughter and will be serving a minimum of 21 years in prison. The length of the sentencing will be reviewed after each term. This means that justice was served and neither one of them will be leaving prison for a very long time.
But what have we learnt as spectators of Arthur's story? For me, its that accountability and responsibility should never be taken for granted. Recently, I've been trying to complete my child and adult safeguarding for Project 21. I'm currently taking a course online to get my safeguarding certification and overall I think I'm learning quite a lot about how abuse manifests itself within families. However, what I am also discovering is that in order to report a concern about a child or an adult, you have to pass it on to the relevant safeguarding manager within your organisation and possibly write a log of concern. Although this process is designed to make sure that no mistakes are made and that no one loses their job because of reporting an issue, it does also mean that no one is held accountable. Arthur himself arrived into school several times with signs of physical abuse and this was detected at times by the teachers but no one said anything because the parents made excuses and no one wanted to lose their job. This sort of incident is not only isolated to Arthur's case. Lack of accountability has been seen in many organisations and occupations and it's because the same safeguarding procedures still exist in those places too. I don't think the system should be changed because is there really a better alternative? But what I think we should all do when we are taking on the loco parentis role, is to be more verbal and to trust our intuitions. What is emphasised in my safeguarding course is that you should trust what you think when you see signs of abuse. Be more assertive and direct. It may risk your career but at the same time you need to own your actions when you are doing something for someone's best interest.
My condolences go out to the rest of Arthur's family who tried to protect Arthur. Its an absolute tragedy.
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