Emma Tustin is a murderer

[DueyCheatemAndHow]

Finally. We can say it.

I've just utterly broken down for Arthur.

Those pictures of her are so chilling, she looks hard as nails. Unbearable to think that this face was the last thing that darling boy saw before he died.

Rest in peace little one.

This case is truly harrowing but not unsurprising when children's services are so utterly underfunded with hardly any resources.

It's not as simple as just removing a child from their home. In some parts of the country there are NO available foster placements. There is a national crisis and shortage of foster carers with demand only set to rise with the ongoing issues or poverty and austerity.

Maybe more of you could consider fostering as you are all so horrified by this case. Why do more of you not foster so social workers actually have a safe home to place these children in? It's easy to blame social workers and professionals but everyone has a part to play in this. I don't know where people think these children go when there are thousands of foster homes short across the country.

Some of you have said you'd have took Arthur in and loved him. Then why not look into becoming an approved foster carer? There are many many more children like Arthur out there.

'This case is truly harrowing but not unsurprising when children's services are so utterly underfunded with hardly any resources.'

Wasn't he seen the day before his death, bruising on his shoulders put down to normal 'rough and tumble' injuries. I mean fgs, scuffed knees yes but ours never had bruised shoulders. His Uncle raised concerns, his grandparents did. You can't put this down to underfunding. I'm not sure how many more red flags SS needed. Utterly harrowing and heartbreaking case.

@JaniieJones

'This case is truly harrowing but not unsurprising when children's services are so utterly underfunded with hardly any resources.'

Wasn't he seen the day before his death, bruising on his shoulders put down to normal 'rough and tumble' injuries. I mean fgs, scuffed knees yes but ours never had bruised shoulders. His Uncle raised concerns, his grandparents did. You can't put this down to underfunding. I'm not sure how many more red flags SS needed. Utterly harrowing and heartbreaking case.

There were so many red flags anyone could have been them waving from space. And still social services did nothing to remove him from that home. Absolutely criminal. They should be prosecuted.

@lollipopss

This case is truly harrowing but not unsurprising when children's services are so utterly underfunded with hardly any resources.

It's not as simple as just removing a child from their home. In some parts of the country there are NO available foster placements. There is a national crisis and shortage of foster carers with demand only set to rise with the ongoing issues or poverty and austerity.

Maybe more of you could consider fostering as you are all so horrified by this case. Why do more of you not foster so social workers actually have a safe home to place these children in? It's easy to blame social workers and professionals but everyone has a part to play in this. I don't know where people think these children go when there are thousands of foster homes short across the country.

Some of you have said you'd have took Arthur in and loved him. Then why not look into becoming an approved foster carer? There are many many more children like Arthur out there.

SW could have placed him with his grandparents or uncle he’d still be alive.

It took me ages to sleep because of thinking about this poor little poor. Then I kept waking up with images in my head. Horrific. And knowing other children are going through this right now. It's horrible to think this exists. I'm not really religious but I pray for Arthur's soul that he's now wrapped in love and feels safe, content and free of fear. I'm doing all I can to make my own children feel loved.

I keep thinking about what social services should have done. They should have spoken to everyone involved in Arthur’s life to build a better picture. You have his maternal grandmother on the news yesterday saying that when Hughes came to collect Arthur from her Arthur would cry uncontrollably and refuse to get in the car if Tustin was there. Did anyone from social services speak to her / know this? Did they speak to Hughes / Tustins family (beyond the Uncle and paternal grandmother)? Perhaps if they’d dug a bit deeper they’d have a more rounded picture of the abuse Arthur was subject to and the way he felt about Tustin. It really wasn’t good enough for ss to just turn up and take Tustin and Hughes word for things. If everyone is saying a child is being abused - and it seems in this case they were- social services should immediately remove that child. And what about the child’s voice?! If they had got Arthur separately and asked him where he would like to stay whilst they investigated I have no doubt he would have said with his Nan and Uncles- why do we not listen to children?

So many similar cases to this out there, and on a lesser scale cases where, against their wishes, children are forced to spend time with an abusive parent at contact centres etc. We put adults first and children second. Every single time.

So many questions:

Were they sociopaths? If you could identify sociopaths early could you prevent this type of cruelty and torture?
Why don't more of us foster? Very good question by poster.
Why are social services so underfunded?
Why is CAHMS so poor in its roll?
Why are the services not better at identifying abuse (apparently they were manipulative - could they not see behind that).

But I keep coming back to how two people could have behaved so appallingly. What made them the way they are? What would psychology tell us so we can identify these types in the future and better yet prevent them from evolving into this hideous version of humans. Is that even possible? Why is psychology/psychiatry not invested in more?

Why was nobody there to support and protect the poor child and the other children treated so appallingly?

This trial and and also the trial for the murder of little Star Hobson had broken my heart for the last month. There were so many chances to save them both.

Headline of the telegraph this morning, " a bruise for every day of lockdown ". The thought of him knowing no one was coming to save him is unbearable! This was an obviously vulnerable child without the further SS involvement, and all the school could do was ring up and ask his abuser if Arthur was ok 😔 horrific to think of all the other unknown children this was happening to during lockdown, they must never happen again!

@Onthedunes

Could I ask some of the posters who were on the original threads, does anyone know about the report that Tustin and Hughes were arrested or cautioned in a local woods the day before lockdown and just before they went to live at Tustins home . It was in the local paper.

I wonder what they were burning ?
Arthurs toys I wonder, cause he didn't have anything in her house except a small cardboard box of items.

I haven’t heard anything about that. Where did you hear this?

Not having enough Foster carers isn't an excuse.
Someone up thread said they plan to stop foster caring when her current children reach adulthood because of the way the system is putting parents rights first.

I know another foster carer who stopped for similar reasons, being given a choice of parents being allowed to visit the foster carers home or child gets put in a taxi alone to go to and from a contact center.
She didn't want abusers in her house nor did she feel it was appropriate for traumatised kids to be sent of in taxis alone to meet abusers and then deal with the 2/3 days of upset before and after.

We need to question why there aren't enough foster carers?
Part of it is putting parents first leaving fosters to deal with the traumatised child, and part of it is possibly foster children NEED a SAHP few families can afford a SAHP. The other issues is them needing their own room.
Do we need to up the money make it a proper job? £££.
Or do we decide that actually good quality children's homes will trained staff I'd the answer.

Of course in Social Services departments their have been terrible failures with tragic consequences and like anywhere there are a range of good/ok/useless stuff.

However, I have a friend who re-trained as a social worker and some of the stuff she says is awful. In most departments there is rock bottom morale.

1.) Budget pressures lead to totally unmanageable work loads, how can there be proper focus on any case when you have so many at one time.

2.) Lack of time/budget inevitably leads to a "tick-box" culture. Support from other agencies who have their own pressures often impossible to get. Any thinking outside the box slapped down or "no resources"

2.) Nil or very limited support from manager or directors. Very much a "well our policies are good, fuck ups are due to poor handling of cases by staff".

3.) Threats/abuse/even physical violence against staff not taken seriously or brushed under carpet by managers. Even when staff have been assaulted, idiotic comments like "well you DO have your "panic fobs".

4.) People desperate to get out of SW due to all of the above and more. Very rare that the experienced and "best" SW become senior managers/directors.

The thing is, right now other children are going through this. In another few weeks or months we will know of another murdered child.

There is probably someone even reading this thread, who abuses their child. Maybe justifies it’s not as bad as what this scum did. But they will be hitting, shouting at, isolating, bullying their child whilst calmly reading this, possibly even posting their sympathy about little Arthur.

The truth is these pieces of shit walk amongst us and it’s chilling to realise it.

Flapperjacker48 that’s all well and good but don’t they also have a strong union. Why don’t they fight through their union for better conditions.
Unfortunately I believe they (child protection) are the problem.

@Flapjacker48 none of that excuses the fact that his massive bruise was totally ignored by the social worker, they should be held to account.

I keep thinking about what social services should have done. They should have spoken to everyone involved in Arthur’s life to build a better picture. You have his maternal grandmother on the news yesterday saying that when Hughes came to collect Arthur from her Arthur would cry uncontrollably and refuse to get in the car if Tustin was there.

There will be a full review into the actions of social work, health, education and the other agencies involved here. It’s worth remembering though that a child protection social worker might have 30 kids on their case load all of whom are in the same, or worse, situation as this little boy. Thresholds for social work involvement are incredibly high so every child on the case load is at significant risk. Thinking about this little one is very difficult but his circumstances aren’t an isolated incident, if you work in child protection you’ll have another 20+ to be thinking about, assessing, making decisions about.

Better finding would pay for more social workers, would enable lower case loads so each child could be better supported and protected, would give time and space for training and good quality clinical supervision which is essential for good practice. It would also allow thresholds for intervention to be lower, so we could catch things earlier.

It’s absolutely terrifying at times knowing you have X number of children any one of whom could be Arthur sitting on your case load. I worked in child protection for 25 years, I’m not in frontline practice now for very good reason.

I posted on the deleted threads. My friend applied to be a foster carer. It was a year long processs during which her friends, me included, her family such as it was, one brother with a Down’s syndrome daughter, were all interviewed by a social worker. The dozy mare then took another job and all the information was either list or misplaced, or as I believe not handed over. A waste of a complete years work. My friend was asked to reapply and declined.

@Malibuismysecrethome "Strong union" Get into the real world. It may surprise you there isn't hoards of people wanting to train as SW, let alone work in child protection.

The truth is that no one did enough. Not his family, not the police, nor the school or the Child Protection team. No one made anything happen to save this child.

Flapperjacker48 that’s all well and good but don’t they also have a strong union. Why don’t they fight through their union for better conditions.
Unfortunately I believe they (child protection) are the problem.

And where are the better conditions going to come from? Local authority budgets have been stripped and social worker pay, recruitment and support stripped with it. And if they go on strike there’s the guilt and public blame that they’re leaving vulnerable families unsupported and children left at risk.

No one wants to pay for decent social services - there’s never the discourse around social work that there is around nursing or teaching, for example in terms of pay and support despite them facing the same pay freezes that everyone else has had.

Chins protection practice is very complex, it’s bound by layers of legislations and thresholds for intervention are high due to lack of funding and resources. This child’s death is an absolute tragedy, but it’s far from an isolated incident, and social workers work incredibly hard, in the face of huge levels of resistance, to try and stop it happening. And they all too often carry the can when it goes wrong.

@Lockdownbear

Not having enough Foster carers isn't an excuse. Someone up thread said they plan to stop foster caring when her current children reach adulthood because of the way the system is putting parents rights first.

I know another foster carer who stopped for similar reasons, being given a choice of parents being allowed to visit the foster carers home or child gets put in a taxi alone to go to and from a contact center.
She didn't want abusers in her house nor did she feel it was appropriate for traumatised kids to be sent of in taxis alone to meet abusers and then deal with the 2/3 days of upset before and after.

We need to question why there aren't enough foster carers?
Part of it is putting parents first leaving fosters to deal with the traumatised child, and part of it is possibly foster children NEED a SAHP few families can afford a SAHP. The other issues is them needing their own room.
Do we need to up the money make it a proper job? £££.
Or do we decide that actually good quality children's homes will trained staff I'd the answer.

It is not an excuse but not having enough placements for children certainly is a contributing factor. When there are no local placements, Social workers are then expected to drive many miles to place a child out of county on top of already huge workloads and LA are paying huge fees from already decimated budgets. . Absolutely agree with you that conditions for foster carers are abysmal, that's a whole other issue that people don't see or consider.

@lollipoprainbow

Of course the individual involved is going to have to justify their actions/lack off, and unlike many jobs, actions taken/not taken can lead to awful events.

But, in reality, people get the social services departments that they are prepared to fund.

metro

There’s two video clips on there. One of a video of her giving a statement on what happened and the other the 999 call.

I would never in a thousand years believe her through those. If my child, or any child, was “barely breathing” I wouldn’t be ranting away trying to say what happened, I would be begging the ambulance to come quickly. Sobbing and trying to compose myself.

@Soubriquet in reality you don’t know how you’d be, because thankfully you’ve not been in that position. I’ve seen shock so very strange things to people, from being ultra calm, being completely frozen or completely hysterical. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and everyone is looking at things in hindsight and boing the dots to the tragic end, and the full story isn’t available in the media, so it’s easy to be an armchair judge. The review will highlight the issues to be addressed and the reasons for things being missed.