Murder accused father cut up son´s football shirts as punishment, court told
A “bullying” father accused of murdering his six-year-old son cut up the boy’s two favourite football shirts in front of him as a punishment, a court heard.
Thomas Hughes, who is accused of aiding and abetting the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, told a jury on Friday that his handiwork left his son “visibly upset” and agreed it was “nasty and cruel”.
Hughes’s partner Emma Tustin, 32, is accused of fatally shaking and hitting Arthur, leaving him with an “unsurvivable” brain injury, while the boy and his father were staying at her home during the first Covid lockdown.
Tustin and Hughes deny murdering Arthur, who jurors previously heard looked “broken” just a few weeks after he moved into Tustin’s home in Cranmore Road, Solihull, West Midlands.
They are both also accused of poisoning Arthur by forcing him to eat salt-laced meals, isolating him within the home, and of inflicting months of abuse likened to “torture” by prosecutors.
Tustin has previously claimed that Arthur self-inflicted his fatal head injury, possibly by throwing himself down the staircase in her hallway, where the boy was forced to spend “12-14 hours” a day as part of the couple’s behavioural regime.
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes died in June 2020 (West Midlands Police/PA)
Hughes, giving evidence in his defence at Coventry Crown Court, was asked about events before his son’s fatal collapse on June 16, 2020.
Mary Prior QC, representing Tustin, asked Hughes about a punishment he inflicted on his son, after it was claimed by Tustin that the boy had ripped up two photographs precious to her.
Hughes told the jury he did not see his son rip up the pictures around the end of April and early May, 2020, but that he did punish Arthur for it.
Ms Prior asked: “You decided to punish him by damaging some of his belongings, didn’t you?”
Hughes replied: “His football shirts, yes. Two of them.”
Ms Prior then asked if he took the two Birmingham City Football Club shirts and “cut them up in front of his face”?
“I would have done, yes,” replied the boy’s father.
When Ms Prior asked him: “Do you agree that’s nasty and cruel?” Hughes replied: “Yes.”
“He (Arthur) was visibly upset,” he said.
The court heard Hughes also “ripped up Arthur’s favourite blanket” and then put the remnants “in the bin”.
Jurors previously heard how Hughes removed his son’s favourite teddy bear on a separate occasion, and that the boy had no bed at the property.
He was instead made to sleep on the floor in the lounge, where he was monitored by an internal CCTV camera.
At the time, Arthur was still coming to terms with recently being told that his natural mother had been sent to prison for killing her then boyfriend, the jury has already heard.
School teachers were among those who had noted a change in the usually happy boy’s behaviour in late 2019 – before lockdown.
Though not present for the alleged fatal assault, Hughes, 29, of Stroud Road, Solihull, is accused of aiding in the killing, and also faces three counts of child cruelty.
Tustin has admitted one count of child cruelty but denies two other similar charges.
The trial continues.
