CCTV shows tragic Arthur desperately try to pick up duvet from floor where he was forced to sleep
Arthur’s harrowing last hours: Starving stick-thin boy, six, cries ‘nobody loves me’ in heartbreaking video as he desperately tries to pick up duvet from floor where he was forced to sleep – before he was ‘beaten to death by father and stepmother’
Thomas Hughes and Emma Tustin are accused of killing Arthur Labinjo-Hughes Coventry Crown Court shown CCTV footage of boy struggling to carry his duvetArthur suffered a campaign of cruelty which ‘amounted to childhood torture’Prosecutors say he was poisoned with salt and made to stand for 14 hours a dayStepmother Tustin, 32, accused of killing him by hitting him fatally in the head
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The harrowing last recorded moments of a ‘tortured’ six-year-old boy show him struggling to pick up his duvet from the floor where he was forced to sleep – just hours before he was allegedly murdered by his father and stepmother.
The heart-wrenching clip, captured on CCTV, shows an emaciated Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, whose pyjamas appear to be hanging off him, grimace in pain as he tries to pick up his cover and special Avengers pillow.
In the haunting video, from June 16 last year, the tragic boy cries ‘nobody loves me’ as he is seen slumping to the floor before barely being able to walk to the other side of the room.
The distressing footage was shown to jurors at Coventry Crown Court on Tuesday, where Thomas Hughes, 29, and Emma Tustin, 32, are accused of killing Arthur at their home in Solihull, West Midlands, on June 17.
The court also heard audio clips released by West Midlands Police in which little Arthur is heard saying ‘no-one is going to feed me’ seven times in 44 seconds.
In another 23-second clip, he says ‘no-one loves me’ four times.
Tragic Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, six, attempts to pick up duvet from floor where he slept in CCTV footage shown to Coventry Crown Court on Tuesday
The heart-wrenching clip shows an emaciated Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, whose pyjamas appear to be hanging off him, grimace in pain as he tries to pick up his cover and pillow
The tragic boy can be heard crying ‘nobody loves me’ as he is seen barely able to walk across the room
It comes after voice notes of Arthur crying sent from Tustin’s phone have been prominent over the course of the trial.
The jury heard Tustin would often message Hughes within minutes of him leaving the home with an audio file of Arthur crying accompanied by a text saying words to the effect of ‘started again’ or ‘still going.’
The prosecution said Tustin recorded more 200 voice notes during the three-month period.
Arthur has been heard calling for his uncle and grandmother in some of them.
He has also been recorded asking for a drink, while in other clips Tustin’s voice could be heard saying ‘stand still’ and issuing other similar instructions.
The court has heard the youngster suffered an unsurvivable brain injury after being subjected to a campaign of cruelty which amounted to the ‘medical definition of child torture’.
This included being deprived of food, made to stand for 14 hours a day and poisoned with salt before his death on June 17 last year, jurors were told.
Hughes and Tustin deny murdering Arthur and multiple counts of child cruelty.
On Tuesday jurors were played the CCTV footage of Arthur struggling to move his duvet after being forced to sleep in the living room for the fifth day in a row.
It showed the final hours of Arthur’s life and jurors were told he was so weak and frail he could barely lift the covers as he woke up on the morning of June 16 last year.
The schoolboy was later killed as a result of having his head banged ‘repeatedly against a hard surface’ at the hands of Tustin, it is alleged.
Arthur’s uncle Blake Hughes told the court last month the youngster broke out in tears after claiming that Tustin had pushed him against a wall and branded him ‘ugly’.
Six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was weakened by months of abuse, salt poisoning and starvation, prosecutors claim (pictured with father Thomas)
The distressing footage was shown to jurors at Coventry Crown Court on Tuesday, where Thomas Hughes, 29, and Emma Tustin (pictured), 32, are accused of killing Arthur at their home in Solihull, West Midlands, last June.
Emma Tustin, who allegedly fatally shook and hit six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, leaving him with an ‘unsurvivable’ brain injury
He said: ‘He said his mum didn’t love him and had abandoned him. He then started to break out crying. He went on to say nobody loved him.’
Jurors have been told how Tustin would send Hughes voice notes of Arthur crying whenever he left the house.
Hughes would reply with messages such as ‘dig Arthur’s grave’, ‘I’ll take his neck off,’ and the ‘kid is getting it when I get back”.
He also sent texts saying that he would take his ‘c*’ting jaw off his shoulders’ and told his partner ‘put him out with the rubbish’.
Earlier this week Hughes admitted he would also use ‘pressure points on Arthur’s neck to discipline him’ after seeing videos about police brutality in the USA online.
He said he would use these pressure points for ‘about 10 to 15 seconds’ to ‘help discipline him.’
Prosecutor Jonas Hankin said the pair routinely physical and verbally abused Arthur to cause Arthur ‘significant harm and suffering’.
He told the court previously: ‘Neither can begin to justify what they did to him. Arthur was a defenceless child entirely dependent on them for his well-being.
‘Arthur became a target for derision, abuse and systematic cruelty designed to cause him significant physical and mental suffering for reasons which are unfathomable.’
Arthur was taken to Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital and his life support was turned off in intensive care at 1am on June 17.
Hughes and Tustin, of Shirley, West Mids, both deny Arthur’s murder.
The trial continues.
