The 6-year-old neglected boy who died at the hands of his father was poisoned with at least one ounce of salt.
Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, 6, succumbed to fatal head injuries after being subjected to “systemic abuse” by his father, Thomas Hughes, and the man’s girlfriend, Emma Tustin, a court heard.
According to the prosecutors, the father repeatedly punished his young son by slapping him, hitting him, making him stand in the hallway for entire days, or forcing him to sleep on the floor.
It has since also been revealed that the boy was poisoned with salt shortly before collapsing and succumbing to his injuries.
Now, the case that was dubbed the “medical definition of child torture,” takes another turn as the results of Arthur’s blood analysis have been released.
As the Coventry Crown Court heard, the 6-year-old’s sodium levels were somewhere between 180 and 187.2 millimoles per liter.
Dr Malcolm Coulthard, a kidney consultant for children, later ran the calculations and concluded that the boy must have ingested at least 34 grams or 1.2 ounces of salt shortly before he was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead.
“This result can only be explained by at least some or possibly all of the salt poisoning having been the result of ingesting salt in the hours before he went to hospital,” the doctor said.
“[Arthur] could have been poisoned gradually over a number of hours or days. But he could not have reached a sodium concentration of 184 by that mechanism.
“He could have been poisoned slowly and reached a level of approximately 170 but beyond that it would not be possible because he would have collapsed. He would have been extremely, extremely ill.”
The doctor also told the court that it was not possible for the child to poison himself or suffer from extreme sodium levels as a result of physical abnormalities or dehydration.
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