How can parents do this?

Hope they throw away the key and never let them out. Foul creatures. No doubt they will get what’s coming to them from their fellow inmates.

Yes she did Sue. The whole thing is a mess.
Urms Good. Maybe this is something to do with Tony's Law?

The prison sentences of the couple who killed six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes are to be reviewed, the Attorney General has confirmed.

The trouble is, Arthur had known love and care, which makes it so unbearable that he knew how that felt, and he didn't feel it in that house, he says the heartbreaking words 'nobody loves me' because he'd known it in the care of his mum, so felt their treatment even more deeply than he would have had he never experienced that love and care from his mum, his grandmother and uncle.

Yes, although his mother had her problems, she seems to have loved him.

Iam64

I’m sure his biological mum loved him. But his life seems to have been one where domestic abuse and with his mum, domestic abuse and drinking were features. Tragically many of our children in the uK have this as their norm. Add drugs in many families

Yes, poor little souls.
They don't really stand a chance. If they survive they may follow the pattern of abuse, drugs, drink.

Kate1949

His biological mum seemed to love him. He looked happy in all the photos when he was with her.

Yet Arthur’s birth-mother killed another mother’s son.

Germanshepherdmum, that's what I have tried to say above, it's heartbreaking beyond measure

I’m sure his biological mum loved him. But his life seems to have been one where domestic abuse and with his mum, domestic abuse and drinking were features. Tragically many of our children in the uK have this as their norm. Add drugs in many families

Their punishment should be exactly the treatment they gave that poor little boy. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. No more no less.

His biological mum seemed to love him. He looked happy in all the photos when he was with her.

How awful. I hate to say this, and please don’t misunderstand, but they say what you haven’t had you don’t miss. He had known love and care which was suddenly replaced by cruelty and neglect and that makes what he suffered all the more heartbreaking. Poor little soul.

Kate1949, I hope and pray the first 4 and a half years of Arthur's life were happy, as the photo's show. It was when his mum was convicted and sent to jail, his whole world seems to have crumbled. By Nov 2019 he was described as vulnerable, that's when Hughes met her. I think, I hope, up until Nov 2019, when his mum was taken away, which he could not have understood, he at least had his grandmother and his uncle, until March, 2020, when Hughes moved himself and Arthur into her house, and the horror began. The trouble is, Arthur had known love and care, which makes it so unbearable that he knew how that felt, and he didn't feel it in that house, he says the heartbreaking words 'nobody loves me' because he'd known it in the care of his mum, so felt their treatment even more deeply than he would have had he never experienced that love and care from his mum, his grandmother and uncle. His dear little heart and spirit were broken

I posted on the other thread that there are pictures of Arthur on some of today's front pages. He looks well cared for and happy with his cute little backpack and beaming all over his gorgeous face. Before that pair got hold of him.

She described it as discipline. Seems he spent most of his time like that, standing facing a wall, hours on end, even when she took him to the hairdressers house. Then he was made to sleep on the floor. His little legs, it's beyond belief

Calistemon, Arthur was probably standing facing the wall whilst they enjoyed their ice creams, no doubt taunting him with how good they tasted. For the last 4 days of his life that is what they had him do, for several hours, every day

Yes Calistemon. They are evil.

Kate1949

I just happened to peruse the Mail online to get the news this morning and a picture popped up of this paid lounging on the sofa eating ice creams in the summer while Arthur starved elsewhere.

That is just pure evil.

Absolutely right terribull. I’m a proper, official step parent myself.

Kate that’s good news. I hope the Attorney General agrees to appeal against the sentencing. It’s horrifying that the ‘father’ could be out in under ten years as time spent on remand will be credited against the sentences too.

The cruelty appalled me, yes, I cry when I think of that poor little mite living with those abhorrent beings. They are sub human and should be treated as such.

A minor point, but I find it most irksome, the fact that this woman was described as a "step parent", as many others who are so recently shacked up with the parent are, a real misnomer if ever there was one. I can never really understand why such a title is conferred, particularly in cases where the treatment of the child/ren of their other is so appalling. A boyfriend/girlfriend, partner/live in partner surely? The step parent title implies far more gravitas than this woman deserves or indeed anyone like her and should surely be attributed to the many step parents who have provided some positive continuity in their step children's lives.

The local MP is trying to get the sentences increased.

I don't think I am a vindictive person. I don't wish death or ill health on anyone but when I read about children like Arthur I find myself hoping that these 2 endure total misery every day that they spend in prison. They should have locked them both up for life and thrown away the keys.

The 'father' will probably get parole halfway through his sentence if he behaves himself in term. If he lives that long. If and when they are released I sincerely hope they are identified and that they suffer.

I imagine even after they're released rom jail they y won't have much of a life. They'll have to be given new identities and will be constantly in fear that someone will discover who they really are.

As they are early 30s they’ll only be 60 and 50 when they are release if not before. What excuses did they have about what they’ve done?