Police and social services received over 60 calls ahead of the killing of a nine-year-old boy by his mum and her partner.
“Sadistic” punishments were carried out on Alfie Steele – including being beaten and held under bath water – until he died at his home in Droitwich, Worcestershire, in 2021. According to a safeguarding report published today, professionals missed a series of opportunities to step in and potentially prevent his murder.
Dirk Howell, 41, was found guilty of murder, while Alfie’s mother, Carla Scott, was convicted of his manslaughter in June 2023. The Worcestershire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership report said professionals from several agencies were involved with the family “over an extended period of time”.
But the report said the agencies “were often hampered by two adults who sought to deliberately lie, mislead and cover up what was happening to this little boy”.
After a BBC investigation using Freedom of Information Requests revealed that 64 referrals were made out of concern for Alfie’s welfare, his grandfather Paul Scott said: “It just makes me want to cry the amount of time it shows in here that Alfie didn’t have to die”.
He said that hearing about the repeated calls made him “very angry.”
“Every single one of them times is a time they could have stopped my grandson from dying,” he said. “That’s not just a number to me.”
He said that at times “social services acted like it was our fault [with] the way that they were fighting us.”
Worcestershire County Council was contacted 36 times between 2018 and 2020 by people who were concerned about Alfie’s welfare, while West Mercia Police were contacted 28 times during the same period.
Alfie’s death followed years of abuse. He had over 50 injuries on his body at the time of his death.
The boy became part of a child protection plan for neglect in 2018, and by August 2019, family and neighbours were raising concerns about Howell’s lengthy criminal history, aggression and drug use, according to the report.
The 41-year-old was also under investigation for a burglary of an elderly man, during which firearms were stolen.
Mr Scott said they “reported Howell again and again to social services and nothing was done,” adding that “nobody joined the dots”.
His wife Alaina added: “We used to report bruises, we reported the little things, the niggles. We were just dismissed.”
The report said that while some of the calls of concern were followed up by a police or social worker visit, it said: “Too often he was described as safe and well when he had not been spoken to”.
It added: “Over the period of this review there were many incidents of concern, they were different in nature, but all were treated in isolation from each other and were not discussed holistically in the context of joint enquiries between the police and children’s services.”
Four months before Alfie’s death, Howell was convicted of a physical assault on a train guard that had occurred earlier in 2020.
He was sentenced to a community order and made subject to electronic monitoring with a curfew – but this was not put in place.
West Mercia Police referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over its involvement. The force’s Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Jones said an initial review into the force’s involvement with the family had resulted in “enhanced training” for officers and staff “to ensure they fully understand the signs of vulnerability, that they are professionally curious and don’t take information on face value.”
An IOPC spokesperson said the review was ongoing but had not identified any conduct issues for any officers involved at this stage.
They continued: “We are looking at the force’s response to concerns about Alfie’s welfare and we have so far examined a large number of documents including police logs, witness statements and relevant policies, along with body-worn video.”
Howell was jailed for life with a minimum of 32 years, while Scott was given 27 with a minimum 17-year term following a sentencing hearing at Coventry Crown Court in June 2023.
