Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has supported ‘Arthur’s Law’ which proposes life imprisonment for child killers.
Gatekeepers News reports that a six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes died due to the horrific ill-treatment and torture from his step-mother and father, hence the call for the new law. The duo inflicted pain on little Arthur by beating the defenceless boy and poisoning him with salt.
The boy’s stepmother, Emma Tustin, 32, was jailed for life, with a minimum of 29 years, while his father, Thomas Hughes, was sentenced to 21 years for manslaughter.
“Anyone who plans then carries out the murder of a child should never be released from prison. “So we’re toughening the law to make whole-life orders the starting point for such abhorrent crimes,” Johnson told The Sun.
The Prime Minister also said he would ensure bringing forward a rapid review on toughening up the sentences handed down to Arthur’s killer father and stepmother.
Discussing the horrific case, the PM said: “The Attorney General is also urgently considering the facts of this case and the sentence handed down, but this is a Government that will always legislate for the toughest possible sentences for such repugnant crimes.”
Johnson’s spokesman added: “We want this to be looked at as a matter of urgency.”
The PM’s intervention comes after Arthur’s 61-year-old grandfather, Peter Halcrow demanded the killers “must never see the light of day again”.
Halcrow said he was “shocked and mystified” as to how social workers had failed to raise the alarm as the boy was starved, poisoned and beaten to death.
And he added: “No punishment could ever be enough for this pair.”
The Government will now amend the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that is currently working its way through Parliament, to bring pre-meditated child murder into line with the most serious offences against children.
At the moment, life sentences apply for abducting and then murdering a child, or murdering them with a sexual or sadistic intent.
Plotting to kill a child and then committing the act will now be added to that list.
Johnson added: “This will be no solace to the friends and family of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes who have my deepest sympathies and condolences.”
