Hairdresser's testimony at Tustin trial

[FallingStar21]

I know there have been several threads discussing various details around the case.. But having read the complete timeline and hairdresser's testimony, i just absolutely cannot believe that neither she or her partner called the police!
For example, she had been at Tustin's house doing her hair for 4 hours and Arthir made to sit at a table and not move for the entire time. She says she just thought he'd been naughty or something. No alarm bells ringing, really?
Different time she witnessed Arthur made to stand by the door, but not move or lean on the door etc.. Arthur given a sandwich to eat by the door while Tustin eating in the garden with the other kids... No alarm bells.
Witnessing Arthur being shouted at horrible words.
Finally, hairdresser at Tustin's with her (hairdresser's) partner seeing Arthur so frail and by their own accounts "petrified". They know Arthur had been deprived of water, because hairdresser's partner gives him a glass of water in secret... a glass, which Arthur cant even hold up to his mouth (all in their testimony) ...No Alarm bells, no nothing?!
If they were previously unsure whether they needed to do something, that last account couldn't have been more crystal clear.
I know legally it's viewed differently, but IMO these people are almost complicit in this... They too, had the responsibility to protect him once they'd seen what they saw, which was really black and white.
Just cant believe it.

Didn't really sum up my post, essentially yes they should be held accountable in my opinion, but I bet they didn't report out of fear for themselves, or because they thought it was none if their business.

Bagel that's a good point, it happened in their house.

Let him have it, yes I agree it is is someone depressing.
The other tragic case is due to conclude next week as well, people said the perp was incredibly loving.

What’s the current law around if you witness a crime whilst committing a crime yourself?

I’m not saying it was because of this or that it is right, but would people be more likely to report abuse if they knew they weren’t going to get in trouble for a crime themselves (in this case breaking lockdown).

There definitely does need to be a change of law in that people who witness abuse need to report it and be held culpable if they don’t. But human nature is to think about ones self and I imagine a lot of people will put their needs above others if it comes to an ‘us or them’ situation.

The hairdresser was vile, but authorities already had a flood of information which they flat out refused to act on. The uncle had been threatened with arrest for trying to intervene. The police were more interested in enforcing Covid rules than protecting children, so if that was the hairdresser's concern it was well-founded.
Compulsory reporting is limited to people who are trained to spot abuse, but still results in an excess of CYA reports for petty things. Extending to everyone would be a nightmare, and as a PP said, would make it harder to investigate as people would clam up and refuse to co-operate.
There is an immeasurably vast informal social network that creates visibility that works to protect the vulnerable. The lockdown slammed that shut.
There was a case in Australia when health authorities went to investigate a nursing home during lockdown and found residents left to starve in their beds. Normally relatives would have picked it up immediately, but they were prevented from visiting.
Situations like that, and Arthur are what happens when abusers are allowed to become invisible to society.

@connorkendallromanshiv

Each generation more stupid and hopeless than the one before.

Ffs. What utter shit

No, it's really not. Each successive generation of this particular type, is worse. Demonstrably so. It should be much harder to do these sadistic things to children now we have the multi-agency approach to safeguarding, and the idea of collective responsibility. But still these cases appear and they appear because of the decline in public spending - including, crucially, in education.

Of course any suspicions of child abuse or neglect should be reported, but there are many parents who would go ballistic/threaten legal action etc at being investigated even if the allegation was false. Yes it would be horrible but surely better that it becomes the norm for ALL suspicions to be looked into rather than to miss the cases such as this tragic one.

maybe it was because it was lockdown and the hairdresser wasn't supposed to be there in the first place

There's a deep rooted mistrust of authority and a culture where you would never 'grass' on a member of your own community.
How you go about fixing that i have no idea.

@bubblesbubbles11

maybe it was because it was lockdown and the hairdresser wasn't supposed to be there in the first place

So many exceptions, childcare been one she could've made something up or as a pp said made an anonymous call. Even say she wasn't in the house but witnessed it outside.

I hope they fine them retrospectively for breaking lockdown with a maximum fine if there's nothing else they can charge them with.

So many stupid people about, as someone else said who would 'sneak' a 6 yr old some water ffs and not challenge the mother or do something.

@JuicySatsuma85

I think it’s incredibly unfair to say the hairdresser & their partner should be charged with something.

It’s not uncommon for people to think, well I’m just the hairdresser seeing a tiny snippet of the situation. I’m sure the boys family, neighbours, teachers etc. have reported it (which they had actually). I’ll not get involved, they’ll know the situation better than me.

You also have to look at the bigger picture. If this couple knew they could be charged with not reporting this they wouldn’t have come forward to testify at the trial. They would have kept what they’d seen to themselves. Making it more likely that Tustin the ACTUAL abuser would be free right now.

Even if the child was so weak they couldn't hold a cup of water? This was extreme and apparent punishment of a clearly underweight child who looked ill and scared. If you have to 'sneak' a child water to drink, the situation is extreme enough that you know it warrants intervention.

And the wider family equally fucking shit.

And the people in authority who ignored multiple reports from his wider family?

His uncle was threatened with arrest for trying to intervene…

@OhMyCrump

There's a deep rooted mistrust of authority and a culture where you would never 'grass' on a member of your own community. How you go about fixing that i have no idea.

Bollocks. Yes if it was regarding benefit fraud or other petty crime but the torture and abuse of a dc? Surely that would justify someone 'grassing'.

If you’ve lived in a nice bubble your whole life, you’ll never understand what these areas are like.

I lived on a council estate for almost a decade. The shit that went on there, you wouldn’t believe. The vast majority of people think it’s normal to smoke weed/get drunk/use other drugs around your children, to not take them to school every day, to have an endless parade of different blokes around their kids, to have parties till 3am, to thump anyone who disagrees with you, to be a grass or a snitch is the worst thing ever, to slash tyres, brick windows, etc etc.

I knew at least 10 families who’d had SS involvement for years - who were aware of the drug use, neglect and abuse but never removed the children. I only know of 1 who had her children permanently removed, when all of them should have been. All of these families had been raised the same way, surrounded by other families being raised that way, and so don’t see the issue with them raising their kids that way.

If anyone on here comments like this, we get called judgmental arseholes.

Society mindset needs to change.

You see it on here all the time - a child someone knows, even in a minor way, and it’s “mind your own business” and worries of repercussions.

Yet a random child in the street who is absolutely not helped by someone winding up their parent - “get them told”.

People choose not to help when their life could be made difficult if they do so.

And in this case that was enabled by the people who should have helped when they ignored the family who did speak out.

@OhMyCrump
Totally agree with this. For many years, I lived on one of Europe's most deprived housing estates in Glasgow. It was utterly hellish. Abuse and neglect was everywhere. The vast majority of people on the estate had drug or alcohol addiction issues, or both. Crime was rife, high unemployment rates, the whole place was ravaged by extreme poverty. Kids being neglected and abused wasn't as uncommon as people would hope it would be.
How do individuals go about reporting each and every one of those poor children? And how does SS go about addressing the culture that exists in these sorts of places?
What happened to poor little Arthur was sickening and deplorable. But there are many, many more kids living a life of abuse and neglect. This is not an isolated case.

I find it bizarre too.......if either of them have children I really hope social services are heavily involved. Both of them have blood on their hands.

It amazes me that people do nothing and social services do t ring police for jobs that matter but will to g the most petty concerns in .

Just this week seen a horrific case of child neglect. Social services aware but because the parents refused to engage they didn't act .
By pure fluke a person with some ioata of decency and common sense rang 101 after mistakenly encountering what was happening inside that house .

I've just seen a national review is going to be conducted. For me - when parents will not speak to social services or won't let them in the immediate thing to do would be a joint visit with police who do have the power to enter. This will just happen again and again otherwise. And people need to report and not be fearful of consequences.

Very true re covid rules and the impact of lockdown greyskelly. This all occurred at a time when police were threatening people for being in their own front gardens.

Far too much “don’t judge” we are told not to judge others parenting even on here elaborate excuses are made for the parents 🙄.

At dds school you are culpable if you witness bullying and don’t report. Same with money laundering. Need the same with child abuse.

I agree with @VikingOnTheFridge. Criminalising people for not intervening would cause a collapse in prosecutions and make safeguarding more difficult. This is a very unusual case, in that there was CCTV inside the home. In most safeguarding cases, SS and the police/CPS are reliant on witnesses being prepared to testify truthfully. You could easily deny or minimise what you saw, if you were afraid of being prosecuted yourself.

Some of you seem not to understand is that the way to get people to report stuff like this is not to make them more scared.

@Alltheblue

How many times have posters here asked if they should report and been subjected to abuse and a reminder that they could not possibly know what was going on and saw 'a snapshot' of a family without context.

Posters have been vilified and abused for suggesting they make a report.

We are very far from a shared understanding of the threshold for reporting.

It seems so clear in this case and yet you're correct - there are so many times when posters are told to keep their thoughts to themselves as they don't understand the full context.

We're in a society where we espouse the principles of safeguarding but too many people feel intimidated into not enacting them.

@OhMyCrump

There's a deep rooted mistrust of authority and a culture where you would never 'grass' on a member of your own community. How you go about fixing that i have no idea.

If authority could be trusted to A) do something and B) not let on who told that would be a start.

I know several occasions from working with children where it’s been let slip who reported them.

Even down to smaller things like I once phoned 999 on a neighbour who sounded like he was beating the living daylights out of his partner. I told the call handler I was home alone with young children so if the officers needed more information could they phone rather than knock on my door. They knocked at the house with the fighting, got no reply, and then walked across to mine and knocked. Making it blatantly obvious. I got grief from the guy for months.

Bollocks. Yes if it was regarding benefit fraud or other petty crime but the torture and abuse of a dc? Surely that would justify someone 'grassing'.

You might think so, these people think different. That's the reality.

There definitely does need to be a change of law in that people who witness abuse need to report it and be held culpable if they don’t

A blanket law wouldn't work as people don't always see things even if they are right in front of them.

Abusers are manipulative and liars as proven by how Tustin acted on the police body cam. There are other famous examples of abusers working in plain sight and threatening to destroy those who mention taking them on e.g. Savile.

In addition plenty of neighbours report suspected child abuse. I know this due to the people I know who do and have worked in SS and other child protection roles. They actually get more reports and information than they can deal with. While some parents are thick and easy to catch out others aren't, and even catching the thick ones takes a lot work to get undisputable proof of their actions.