The monster who tortured and murdered six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes never said a word about the little boy while awaiting trial.
Evil Emma Tustin, who was this week jailed for 29 years, tried to hide her horrific crimes from other inmates. And the only time the self-pitying stepmum shed a tear was for herself – after Arthur’s dad Thomas Hughes, who got 21 years for manslaughter and child cruelty, ignored her at a court hearing.
Tonight – as it emerged the couple’s jail sentences will be reviewed – details of Tustin’s time on remand were revealed by her former cellmate Elaine Pritchard.
Elaine, who spent six weeks locked up with Tustin, told the Sunday Mirror: “Emma hadn’t said anything about Arthur dying. She never mentioned him.”
Instead scheming Tustin, 32, told inmates she was being held in prison because Hughes, 29, “neglected” his son.
Elaine added: “She always felt sorry for herself. One day she came back from a plea hearing and was upset, so I asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ “She said, ‘He didn’t look at me, Tom never looked at me’. That was the only time I saw her upset about anything.”
Tustin shared a cell with Elaine at Eastwood Park prison, Glos, last year.
Elaine had been recalled to jail for battery and criminal damage. She said Tustin used to “laugh and joke” on the phone. And she claimed the mum of four told her own mother she would never see her grandchildren again unless she retracted statements about Arthur.
The lad was poisoned, starved and finally beaten to death in a campaign of horrific abuse.
Elaine only discovered the truth about the charges Tustin was facing when she found and read her case paperwork.
She said: “We had a fight – it was me more than her. I got angry because I’d read about how he [Arthur] had 130 bruises and I asked how she wouldn’t notice when she gave him a bath.
“She said she just used to give him a towel.
“I pressed the bell and said if the prison officers didn’t get her out then I’d be staying there a long time.”
Tustin was moved to a different cell. But Elaine said after inmates learned how Tustin poisoned Arthur with salt, they laced her meals with it.
She said: “Some of the things we did were cruel – but she was crueller to Arthur so she deserved it.”
Elaine, who was not paid for her interview, gave evidence at Tustin’s trial.
As well as details of devastating violence inflicted on Arthur, Coventry Crown Court heard Tustin and Hughes imprisoned him for 14 hours a day in a hall at her home in Solihull, West Mids.
He was also denied food. Sickening footage showed the couple eating ice cream while the little boy starved.
Watchdogs are now investigating after jurors heard Arthur’s family had raised concerns with social services and police.
And the Attorney General’s Office tonight confirmed the evil couple’s sentences will be reviewed to “determine whether they were too low”.
Local MP Julian Knight vowed to refer the case to the Unduly Lenient Sentencing scheme.
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He said: “There’s a palpable sense of loss and tragedy and also a sense of anger and questions as to how this was allowed to happen, how these monsters were allowed to inflict this horrible torture on this young defenceless boy.”
A petition calling for the killers to receive whole-life orders has already been signed by more than 89,000 people.
