EX-CITY CHILDREN’S BOSS HELD SAME ROLE AT ARTHUR DEATH PROBE COUNCIL
Review is under way into missed signs of abuse before tragedy
THE former boss of Stoke-on-trent’s ‘inadequate’ children’s services had the same role in Solihull when six-yearold Arthur Labinjo-hughes was tortured and murdered by his stepmum.
Louise Rees left her job as director of children’s services at Stoke-on-trent City Council shortly before the 2019 inspection, which saw the authority receive the lowest possible rating from Ofsted.
According to the report, children in Stoke-on-trent were not being protected, with ‘widespread and serious failures’ leaving them at risk of ‘significant harm’.
Ms Rees was then appointed director of children’s services at Solihull council, a role she had resigned from in 2020 and eventually left in July this year.
She is believed to have now retired. An independent review is under way into the actions of social workers at her department, who found ‘no safeguarding concerns’ for Arthur just two months before he suffered an ‘unsurvivable brain injury’ on June 16, 2020.
Emma Tustin, left, aged 32, was unanimously convicted of murdering Arthur at Coventry Crown Court and sentenced to a minimum of 29 years.
Her partner and Arthur’s father, 29-year-old Thomas Hughes, below, was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 21 years. During the trial, jurors heard how Solihull Council social workers visited the boy at Tustin’s Cranmore Road home on April 17, 2020, after concerns from his paternal grandmother. Despite social workers examining the boy’s back and finding a ‘faint’ yellow bruise, they agreed with Tustin and Hughes that it was a ‘happy household’, with no cause for concern.
But the trial heard that the couple had subjected Arthur to regular beatings and denied him food and drink.
During the fatal assault, Tustin had shook him violently and banged his head on a hard surface.
Stephen Cullen, chairman of Solihull’s Local Child Safeguarding Partnership, said: “This terrible tragedy has had a shocking impact on Arthur’s family and across the whole community.
“The tragic loss of a young boy in such terrible circumstances is dreadful. We send our heartfelt condolences to everyone affected.
“The circumstances around his death will now be subject to an independent review – the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review – and clearly it would be inappropriate for the partnership to comment ahead of the findings of that review.”
Stoke-on-trent City Council’s children’s services are still rated inadequate, and addressing the problems raised by Ofsted has been a top priority for council leaders for the last three years.