How many generations back did it go wrong for Arthur

[iwanttobeonleave]

The awful case of Arthur L-H has got me thinking about the long term causes of these situations. Clearly all three adults involved were completely despicable but why? What's caused this and where did it go wrong?

Can this level of disfunction happen in one generation or would there be a history of it if one looked back a few generations?

Just such a completely desperate case, the poor, poor child.

I would go so far as to say that if TH gave the "order" to kill Arthur ("just end him"), knowing he was saying this to someone who was already abusive and violent to Arthur, his manslaughter conviction should be appealed and he should get murder.

I agree with this.

@PicsInRed

I would go so far as to say that if TH gave the "order" to kill Arthur ("just end him"), knowing he was saying this to someone who was already abusive and violent to Arthur, his manslaughter conviction should be appealed and he should get murder.

I think he is the manipulative one and I think he meant for Arthur to die and thought he could get away with Tustin doing it for him - and taking all of the fall.

i agree tbh. Not to try and minimise what she did, but I think he deserved more than a manslaughter conviction.

I'm not familiar with English law but is there not a charge that if 2 people act together that they can both be convicted of murder even though only one made the final blow?

Maybe it just came down to tone/timing of the texts? The judge seemed to be saying that despite the text saying "end him", it wasn't meaning that as such. Like when we are angry and say something like "I'm going to shove that football where the sun don't shine", it's not an actual threat as all you mean is that you are angry.

So maybe there is context that we aren't seeing? Regardless I would still have charged and convicted him of murder. He's an evil gobshite and sleekit and sneaky with it.

Quite apart from the horror of it, how did they think they could get away with it?
If it was intentional and they were deliberately trying to kill him, the police mustn't have been able to believe their luck with the CCTV and WhatsApp messages basically showing exactly what happened.
Are they totally thick or what?
I mean I'm glad they weren't able to get away with it obviously. Just all seems such bizarre behaviour.

I would not place too much emphasis on what an ex says to be honest. But she is clearly diabolical, no matter.

Given we know the local police and social services cocked up badly with Arthur’s family reporting things I don’t see why her ex should be discounted.

She certainly didn’t go from doting parents to murderous step-parent in one step.

I would not place too much emphasis on what an ex says to be honest.

Well, nor would I necessarily. But her injuries from these two self-inflicted acts are well documented and her utter lack of remorse since Arthur's death would tend to back up what this man says. Watching her calmly explain what happened to the police officer (wearing a body cam), in the immediate aftermath, you can see why she was believed by agencies on earlier occasions when she was investigated for possible child abuse. She's calm, seems reasonable, not angry, etc. It was chilling to watch.

I'm not familiar with English law but is there not a charge that if 2 people act together that they can both be convicted of murder even though only one made the final blow?

Yes its murder by joint enterprise or something.
I think its fairly recent after some cases where they couldn't prove who dealt the final blow, say in a mass brawl, so no-one was convicted. But I'm no expert.

@Jodiewa

Yes she seems a good woman. She is a secondary school teacher and reported concerns over her grandson twice, desperately.

And yet when little Arthur was living in her house he was so in fear of his life he told teachers that he feared that his Dad would kill him. Did she report then no. Her statement said that he would have been fine has her son not met Emma. Her son had been abusive to that poor boy since before birth.

This shows the complications of having an abuser in the family. Children may have lovely relatives who are kind and loving to them but at the end of the day value their relationship with the abuser to much to safeguard the child. My DS paternal grandmother is a lovely woman but she will never she her grandson because she does not want to admit her own son is abusive despite ample evidence. A woman in the group I went to lost both her children who she was a devoted mum to because she did not acknowledge that her new partner was abusive too.

It is sometimes an impossible position for families and they fear that if they confront their relative they will lose the child too.

@PicsInRed

I would go so far as to say that if TH gave the "order" to kill Arthur ("just end him"), knowing he was saying this to someone who was already abusive and violent to Arthur, his manslaughter conviction should be appealed and he should get murder.

I think he is the manipulative one and I think he meant for Arthur to die and thought he could get away with Tustin doing it for him - and taking all of the fall.

This is exactly what I think.

I think they are both evil, but I think he’s actually the worst one. He killed his own child in a way that made sure someone else faced the murder charge.

Reminds me very much of my parents. Both nasty and evil, but him smarter. So the bigger legal issues would always fall on her head.

Plus in Hughes’ case he may well have realised that they weren’t going to get away with it, and if she gave the final injury then the press and public would get wrapped up in the female killer/step mother angle and there would be less focus on him. Which is exactly what has happened.

Someone in this or another thread said maybe he had a better lawyer/legal team, it could be as simple as that.

And yet when little Arthur was living in her house he was so in fear of his life he told teachers that he feared that his Dad would kill him.

I can actually see why that kind of comment would be misunderstood by people and not seen as actual genuine fear of his father and therefore not reported.

His mother had just killed a man so murder and being murdered wouldn’t have been a surprising thing for him to talk about. Especially as that incident happened in the family home.

I could see my father easily manipulating that kind of situation and it being seen as something completely different.

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

There was one poster who couldn’t understand one particular point, but it was actually perfectly clear.

It wasn’t. People said “that’s not what she is saying” but no one has managed to explain what she was saying.

It’s not really their problem if you couldn’t understand the point. It was fairly straightforward.

@Ijsbear

And neither of them said or did a single thing. What is actually wrong with them?

what the fuck were they supposed to do? what, report them?

to what end?

do you really think that this kid, who was reported so many times, would have been saved by the hairdresser? One single more report?

these threads make me so angry because this child could and should have been helped and saved. Poor, poor little sod. But there isn't the will. There just isn't the will to do anything about it.

It's so much easier to scream on media and demonise the parents than to actually write to the MP, to do what you can for kids in this situation either directly by helping or indirectly by writing to MPs to get actual funding for Social Services and a better level of foster care.

But on no, it's so much easier just to post your upset.

Yes. You report it. Every little report builds up a picture for SS. Put that information together with reports from school, the grandmother etc and it comes together to show abuse.

If you saw a small boy being sent to stand in the hallway for hours alone, who was so frail he couldn’t lift a cup, seemed frightened you’d just leave it would you?

Every little report builds up a picture for SS. Put that information together with reports from school, the grandmother etc and it comes together to show abuse.

Exactly what happened in this case - multiple reports, and yet nothing was done.

That was the poster’s point.

Reports went nowhere because SS did not have their shit together.

@liveforsummer

Just because a child had what is perceived to be a privileged upbringing and gone to a posh school, or has at least one decent parent doesn't mean they haven't suffered abuse and/or extreme trauma. That's worth remembering when people are shocked at the backgrounds of the parents. It could well have gone deeper but as a pp states, I'm not sure we will ever know

Thank you for pointing this out!

Financial privilege / education / intelligence / higher socioeconomic status is not synonymous with coming from a loving, stable family background.

I've just read that the sentences are going to be reviewed as being 'unduly lenient'. More, please!

Financial privilege / education / intelligence / higher socioeconomic status is not synonymous with coming from a loving, stable family background.

And vice versa. DSs went a primary school that was essentially 50% kids from a "rough" council estate (similar to the ones DH and I grew up on) and 50% from a new build "executive" estate (where we lived). DS1 was bullied terribly in school and it wasn't the DC on "the other side of the tracks" but rather DC that had been in our social circle and came from "nice" families. Both DSs had some lovely friends from struggling/single parent homes. Wealth, education etc is of no real consequence, bullies and poor behaviour can come from anywhere and there are lots of children being brought up beautifully in less than optimal circumstances.

@ElephantOfRisk Absolutely!

Financial privilege / education / intelligence / higher socioeconomic status is not synonymous with coming from a loving, stable family background.

Should also point out in case my comment gave the wrong impression - intelligence and socioeconomic status are not synonymous and do not entail one another either.

I think we’re so class conditioned in this country that we forget this even when we know it.

@TatianaBis

Every little report builds up a picture for SS. Put that information together with reports from school, the grandmother etc and it comes together to show abuse.

Exactly what happened in this case - multiple reports, and yet nothing was done.

That was the poster’s point.

Reports went nowhere because SS did not have their shit together.

That’s as may be but you can’t just think that you won’t bother reporting any abuse because nothing will get done.

That’s as may be but you can’t just think that you won’t bother reporting any abuse because nothing will get done.

No-one has actually suggested that.

@TatianaBis

That’s as may be but you can’t just think that you won’t bother reporting any abuse because nothing will get done.

No-one has actually suggested that.

Yes they have. Several times.

@TheRigatonini

Financial privilege / education / intelligence / higher socioeconomic status is not synonymous with coming from a loving, stable family background.

Should also point out in case my comment gave the wrong impression - intelligence and socioeconomic status are not synonymous and do not entail one another either.

I think we’re so class conditioned in this country that we forget this even when we know it.

I took it that it was a list to pick from, not that they were all related/present in all circumstances :)

My DDads parents committed suicide (separately, a week apart) when he was a small child. His younger sister went to live with an Aunt in what we believe were pretty nice circumstances, my dad and his brother were brought up by grandparents in abject poverty, often being sent to a children's home where he was routinely abused. He met and married my mum and had 7 of us. I have never known him to raise a hand or voice to any of us. He wasn't a perfect parent, he had issues with alcohol and gambling but he died at 67 and we only found out about his circumstances much later when doing a family tree. We'd always been told as kids that his parents died in the war to which we presumed it was in actual connection to the war rather than gassing themselves at home.

So, given the abuse that my dad had (at home with the GPs as well as in the home) you'd have thought that some of that might have leaked on but it didn't. We also grew up in poverty but with 2 working parents at a time where we didn't really realise we were poor as our lives were pretty narrow and centred around the streets we grew up in where pretty much most people were poor.

It’s not really their problem if you couldn’t understand the point. It was fairly straightforward.

why engage if you’re not going to actually engage?

@ElephantOfRisk

That is such a shocking, tragic set of circumstances for your Dad to have to go through. What a testament to him that he protected you all from that and broke that cycle with his own parenting.