"Systemically flawed" joint working undermined agencies' ability to uncover the abuse of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in the weeks before his murder.
That was the damning conclusion from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel's review into the killing of the six-year-old by his stepmother, Emma Tustin, and father, Thomas Hughes, in Solihull
The panel cited as a critical problem Solihull council's failure to convene a multi-agency strategy meeting when Arthur's paternal grandmother reported bruising on his back - in April 2020, two months before his death.
Instead, the children's social care service adopted a "single agency" approach in carrying out a home visit, which left social workers strongly reliant on self-reports by Tustin and Hughes, without the ability to triangulate these with other information. It also prevented professionals from challenging their own biases about the family, including the belief that Hughes was a protective factor for Arthur.
After the panel released its report, the chief executive of Solihull Council, Nick Page, revealed that social workers in the borough had faced such abuse that some had had to leave their homes, following Tustin and Hughes's trial, which concluded in December 2021.
'Systemic flaw'
Giving its verdict on Arthur's case, the panel said: "Our conclusion is that a pivotal dynamic underpinning many of these practice issues was a systemic flaw in the quality of multi-agency working. "There was an overreliance on single agency processes with superficial joint working and joint decision making. This had very significant consequences."
On the back of its reviews into the murders of Arthur and 16-month-old Star Hobson, in Bradford, the panel called for the creation of multi-agency expert child protection units - to tackle the two key failings it identified in both cases: inadequate joint working and a need for sharper child protection skills and expertise.
