Social workers forced to flee threats and abuse after murder of boy, 6
SOCIAL workers have had to leave their homes because of abuse and threats following the trial of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’s killers, a council boss revealed.
Nick Page, chief executive of Solihull Council, said the murder of the six-year-old in June 2020 had “devastated” the community.
He was responding to the publication of a national review by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, commissioned in December 2021 after the deaths of Arthur and also 16-month-old Star Hobson, to look at what could be done to prevent things from going so “horrifyingly wrong” in future.
Arthur was murdered by his stepmother Emma Tustin at their home in Solihull. She was jailed for life with a minimum term of 29 years at Coventry Crown Court in December last year. Arthur’s father Thomas Hughes, 29, was jailed for 29 years after being found guilty of manslaughter.
Star was murdered by her mother’s girlfriend Savannah Brockhill at her home in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in September 2020. Star’s mother Frankie Smith, 20, was found guilty of causing or allowing the youngster’s death.
The review found the fatal abuses suffered by the children “are not isolated incidents”, but reflective of wider problems with poor information sharing and weak decision-making. Concerns raised by their wider family members were “too often” disregarded and not properly investigated, the review said.
It found that professionals were increasingly kept at arm’s length by those perpetrating the abuse, and they failed to identify a “pattern of parental disengagement and avoidant behaviour”.
In a statement responding to the review, Mr Page said: “What I’m clear about is that social work, being a social worker, is one of the most caring,
yet hardest vocations to do. I’m proud that we’ve got expert, dedicated and caring people working with us here.
“But I’ve been concerned over the last six months, because the level of abuse and even threats towards them has meant that some have even had to leave their own homes, with their families, with their children, and with their partners. This can’t be right. My considered view is this: now is not the time for blame, but it is most definitely the time for learning and sorting. Also, we need to think long and hard about how we support those and help those children and young people live happy and safe lives, how we get better at looking after children.”
The panel interviewed just under 80 professionals in Birmingham, Solihull and Bradford the children’s family members, including Star’s mother and her mother’s partner; and drew on 1,500 rapid reviews of serious incidents since it was formed.
The way child protection is approached in England needs to “change fundamentally”, it said.