A dad and his girlfriend have been found guilty of the killing of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.
Emma Tustin was found guilty of murder following Arthur’s death from unsurvivable brain injuries after he was found with 125 areas of bruising on his body.
She was accused of taking a photograph of the boy on her mobile phone as he lay dying in the hallway following a brutal assault.
Her partner Thomas Hughes, 29, was convicted of manslaughter after Coventry Crown Court heard of the campaign of cruelty the little boy was subjected to.
Distressing video of the “starving” little boy had shown him crying “nobody loves me” and struggling to carry a duvet hours before he died.
He is said to have been deprived of food and made to stand in a hallway for 14 hours a day.
Speaking after the verdicts, Arthur’s maternal grandmother, Madeleine Halcrow, described the couple as “wicked” and “evil”.
She described the couple’s behaviour as “unfathomable” after hearing Tustin poisoned her grandson by force-feeding him salt-laced meals.
Huges and Tustin were named “utterly ruthless, unthinking and pitiless” by prosecutors.
The court heard how Arthur had his head banged “repeatedly against a hard surface” at the hands of Tustin in Solihull in June 2020.
She took 12 minutes to call 999 and then lied that he had “fell and banged his head and while on the floor banged his head another five times”.
The stepmother later claimed he must have thrown himself down the stairs, despite evidence he was barely strong enough to stand.
Jurors heard how Hughes encouraged his son’s killing, sending a text to Tustin 18 hours before the fatal assault saying “just end him”.
Hughes later allegedly told his son: “Watch you little c***, I’ll bury you six feet under.”
Before his death, Arthur told his father: “I am in danger with you, dad.”
Both Tustin and Hughes had denied murder and multiple counts of child cruelty.
Jurors also convicted Tustin of two counts of child cruelty, including salt-poisoning and withholding food and drink from Arthur.
She had already admitted two other cruelty counts; wilfully assaulting Arthur on three occasions and isolating him, including by forcing him to stand in the hallway for up to 14 hours a day as part of a draconian punishment regime.
Hughes, who had denied any wrongdoing, was also convicted of the cruelty offences which Tustin had admitted – but cleared of withholding food and drink, or of poisoning his own son with salt.
Below are videos of Arthur crying “nobody loves me” and struggling to carry his duvet after sleeping on the floor.