Emma Tustin is recently in the limelight for being sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 29 years after being found guilty of manslaughter.
Emma Tustin is a stepmom of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes who killed him. She was jailed for a minimum of 29 years where Elaine Pritchard was her former cellmate. Elaine shared with The Mirror that Emma never mentioned dying Arthur. She said, “She always felt sorry for herself. One day, she came back from a plea hearing and was upset, so I asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ She said, ‘He didn’t look at me, Tom, never looked at me.’ That was the only time I saw her upset about anything.”
On Friday, Emma Tustin was convicted of murder after she repeatedly hit her stepson’s head against a hard surface causing catastrophic injuries that led to his death at only the age of six. The ruthless and manipulative Emma Tustin was convicted of six-year-old Arthur’s murder following an eight-week trial at Coventry Crown Court on Thursday. His father, Thomas Hughes, 29 had encouraged violence towards his son and the son was rushed to Birmingham Children’s Hospital but the damage to his brain was irreversible as he has been brutally slammed against hard surfaces by his step-mother. He died in the Intensive Care Unit at 1 am on 17 June. His postmortem examination found more than 130 injuries all over his body. Before, that Arthur was taken care of very badly. No child deserves that. He was made to stand still facing a wall every day, was deprived of food and water, and was poisoned with salt too.
In video footage, the evil stepmom and monstrous father can be seen enjoying their ice creams on the sofa while the six-year-old son is left to stand starved in the hallway wearing a fluffy onesie in sweltering temperatures.
The evil step-mom, Emma had shown her true colors in all of her past relationships. She was described as a Black Widow by a friend of hers saying that she would draw people in and put them under a spell and control them. Her former partner described her as ‘unhinged’ and said she broke her leg to stop him from going out with a friend. She jumped from the top floor of a multi-story car park when her other lover left her eight years ago. She would even try to get pregnant early in a relationship to have control over the man. She would spend all the money meant for childcare on herself shopping and getting a new tattoo.
It is reported that Arthur had expressed his concerns with his wider family, his doctor, and his school about how his father was going to kill him for well over a year and nobody listened to him. The court declared that Mr. Hughes had made a number of threats towards his son including putting him under six feet under and sending Tustin messages such as ‘Just end him’ which ultimately proved that he had encouraged violence against his own son and beating himself too.
Initially, the ruthless parents denied murdering their six-year-old son but the case was clear from the start. The cruel stepmother had murdered six-year-old Arthur at their home. However, Emma has admitted a charge of child cruelty after CCTV footage of her assaulting Arthur three times between 12 and 16 June 2020 was shown. But she still denies child cruelty by way of poisoning him with salt-lace drinks and meals. Her former cellmate Elaine had told Ms. Tustin shared with her that Arthur died on his own by being naughty and banging his head on the floor by himself and she would film him on her phone.
While Mr. Hughes had denied three counts of child cruelty in addition to his murder charge, Prosecutor Jonas has said that both defendants were equally culpable of murdering Arthur and added, “Thomas Hughes had the power and the right and indeed the legal duty to intervene to protect Arthur but he deliberately failed, he deliberately refrained. He didn’t just assent, he promoted and he encouraged the cruelty Arthur was subjected to.”
Mr. Hughes also punished his son for ripping up the pictures by cutting two football shirts in front of him when he just heard from his partner about the pictures. He also ripped up Arthur’s favorite blanket and removed his son’s favorite Teddy bear and had him sleep on the floor in the lounge where he was monitored by a CCTV camera.
Andrew Hughes, brother of Thomas Hughes described his first impression of Emma Tustin as very very cold and told the court, the last time he saw his nephew, Arthur was around a week before the first lockdown in March 2020 where he seemed far more timid and aware he might get in trouble. He shared his brother was a very warm person with a strong belief in the family before meeting Emma who turned himself into a stranger from his own family. He added, “He went within himself” and the tied became looser with his family members. Andrew had admitted that Emma’s the catalyst for everything that happened to Arthur. He said, “She was domineering. If she didn’t get what she wanted she would make things difficult for everyone else.”
The 32-year-old Emma Tustin shed tears and blamed lockdown for things going wrong with Arthur and said “ he didn’t deserve to be isolated, treated the way he was. I can obviously say how sorry I am.” When asked about why she waited until the start of the trial to plead guilty to a single charge of cruelty, she answered saying she was a little bit of a coward and knew the things were awful and added, “ on the day I pleaded guilty that was the day I read the text messages. They were much worser than I thought they was. I pleaded guilty because I was guilty to cruelty.”