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Please note that this insight was first published in January 2022, and therefore whilst the subject matter is still relevant, it may not represent the most up to date information or use of language in this area.
Introduction
The sentencing in Coventry Crown Court of Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes on the 3rd December 2021 served was the culmination of a significant court case which set out the tragic and horrendous treatment of a six year old boy by his father and father’s partner. In his sentencing remarks Mr. Justice Wall identified the case as “one of the most distressing and disturbing case [sic] with which I have had to deal.”
The response to the case has been rapid and significant, with the government announcing a “major review into the circumstances leading up to murder of Arthur” in order “to determine what improvements are needed by the agencies that came into contact with him in the months before he died.” This local review will be supplemented by a national review to look at lessons that can be learnt. What happened to Arthur and the wider issues that it raises was also subject to a debate in the House of Commons during which the MP for Harlow and Chair of the Education Committee, Robert Halfon, stated:
As I understand it, Arthur was not in school—he had been kept at home by his father—when this tragedy happened. My right hon. friend the Secretary of State will know that, putting aside the 200,000 children sent home because of covid, who are known about by the school system, there are another 100,000 ghost children, as I call them, who are lost in the system. They not returned to school for the most part, and are potentially subject to safeguarding hazards—county lines gangs, online harms and, of course, awful domestic abuse.
Amanda Spielman picks up on this in her opening remarks for the Ofsted 2020/21 Annual Report, succinctly stating that due to the pandemic “Many vulnerable children disappeared from teachers’ line of sight.” (p.7) The Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, adds a note of caution reminding us that the issue of children who are persistently absent from education was already present prior to the pandemic, with the pandemic serving to increase the size of this cohort. . De Souza goes on to highlight that in many cases the rationale for the persistent absence is not clearly understood, stressing that “the issue of increased pupil absence during the pandemic should not be simplistically conflated with the tragic and extreme case of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.”
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