Coventry, UK - A British stepmother has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 29 years for cruelly abusing, poisoning, and murdering her 6-year-old stepson.

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was left with an unsurvivable brain injury while in the sole care of the monstrous 32-year-old Emma Tustin.

She assaulted him with severe force in the hallway of her Cranmore Road home in the English town of Solihull, on June 16, 2020, with Arthur dying in hospital the following day.

Tustin was unanimously convicted of Arthur's murder after an eight-week trial, with the boy's "pitiless" father, Thomas Hughes, 29, found guilty of his manslaughter, after encouraging the killing.

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He was jailed for 21 years during their sentencing hearing at Coventry Crown Court on Friday.

It emerged at trial that Arthur had been seen by social workers just two months before his death, after concerns were raised by his paternal grandmother Joanne Hughes, but they concluded there were "no safeguarding concerns."

In her victim impact statement, which she read in court ahead of the
sentencing, Hughes said Arthur was a "happy, contented, thriving" child who would "be alive today" had her son not met Tustin.

The secondary school teacher added: "It is also clear that Arthur was failed by the very authorities that we, as a society, are led to believe are there to ensure the safety of everyone."

As the hearing began, judge Mark Wall said Tustin had been brought to court for her sentencing but had "refused to come up" to the dock.

He described the parents' conduct as "sadistic" and said the trial had been "without doubt one of the most distressing and disturbing cases I have had to deal with."