The UK government has announced that the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes will be the subject of a national inquiry in order to help protect other children from such abuse.
BBC News reports that despite social workers finding "no safeguarding concerns" in the days prior to his death, six-year-old Arthur was the subject of torture and abuse by his father and stepmother.
Arthur was killed on June 16, 2020, after his 32-year-old stepmom Emma Tustin inflicted an "unsurvivable head injury" on the young boy. Following his death, a total of 130 bruises were found on the child's body.
In March 2020, Arthur and his father - 29-year-old Thomas Hughes - merged their families and started living at Tustin's home, along with her two young children, aged four and five. By April, complaints from Arthur's grandmother about Tustin's "hostility" towards the young child had led to several visits from social services and police, BBC News states.
When Arthur's grandmother had found bruises on the child's back, he told her that his stepmom had slammed him into the stairs and called him an "ugly, horrible brat".
But Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes were successful at deceiving visitors - telling them that the bruises were down to Arthur playing.
In reality - and despite surveillance cameras set up in the house to monitor the boy's treatment - Arthur was tortured, abused, and demoralized.
During the trial of Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes, jurors heard how Arthur would have his favorite possessions, such as his Birmingham City football shirts, torn up and destroyed in front of him. He was made to stand on a naughty step for up to 14 hours a day in the hallway, segregated from the rest of the family. If he failed to stand up straight, he father would shout at him and threaten him. He would be denied food and water, while watching his father and Tustin's children eating. Tustin also laced his food and drink with salt, slowly poisoning the boy.
The court heard that when Arthur would cry to himself, Tustin would record him. Investigators found over 200 clips of Arthur in distress. In some, the severely underweight boy would beg: "I want you to feed me, no one's going to feed me." In another, he can be heard saying: "No one loves me."
When Tustin would send these recordings to his father, he would reply with messages like "Just end him" and "I'll sort him out when I'm home."
On the day Arthur died, it is believed Tustin made him consume a salt slurry. She then inflicted a fatal brain injury by shaking Arthur and banging his head into a hard surface. Tustin denied these claims in court, saying that Arthur's injuries were self-inflicted.
However, medical experts disagreed - saying that Arthur would have been incapable of inflicting these injuries on himself.
On Friday, Emma Tustin was jailed for 29 years for murder and child cruelty. Thomas Hughes received 21 years for manslaughter.
The Attorney General's Office has since announced that these jail terms will be reviewed to "determine whether they were too low", BBC News reports.
Following the public's outcry at the case, the UK's education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has said: "We will not rest until we have the answers we need."
Zahawi added that "a single, national review of Arthur's death to identify where we must learn from this terrible case".
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday: "It is early days, but I can tell you this, we will leave absolutely no stone unturned to find out exactly what went wrong in that appalling case."
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has also stated that he wants to see "what lessons further we can learn" from Arthur's case.
Zahawi has requested that inspectors in police, probation, health, and social care work to investigate the safeguarding agencies in Solihull who oversaw Arthur's care.
It is believed that Zahawi will make a further statement on Arthur's case in the House of Commons on Monday.
Over the weekend, Arthur's home was flooded with flowers, balloons,toys, and cards from members of the public. Tributes were paid to him at soccer games.
The message from the public is that Arthur was and is still loved.
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