This is the terrifying moment Alfie Steele’s killer stepfather threatened to burn down a neighbour’s house after locals told police about his sickening treatment of the nine-year-old boy.
Dirk Howell, 41, was sentenced to life earlier this week with a minimum of 32 years in prison after being convicted of murdering Alfie in Droitwich, Worcestershire in February 2021.
Alfie’s mother and Howell’s girlfriend, Carla Scott, 35, was also sentenced to 27 years, of which she will serve 17 in custody before release after she was found guilty of manslaughter.
Concerned neighbours had made a number of reports to the police about the couple’s cruel discipline regime taking place at Scott’s flat.
In early August 2020 a neighbour’s Ring doorbell captured Scott approach their home, seemingly on the orders of Howell.
Alfie Steele died after his lifeless body was pulled from a bath having suffered more than 50 injuries at the hands of Dirk Howell, 41, and his girlfriend and Alfie’s mother Carla Scott, 35, in February 2021
Jurors at Coventry Crown Court took ten hours and 13 minutes to find Scott (left) guilty of Alfie’s manslaughter, returning a majority verdict of 11 to one, but cleared her of murder. Howell (right) was found guilty of murder by a unanimous verdict
But Howell, who was staying there against the orders of social services, often retaliated with threats and abuse of his own to those he deemed responsible for drawing the attention of the authorities to Scott’s home.
She looked off screen and asked her boyfriend to ‘come down’ and join her but he barked back ‘knock the door’, before instructing Scott to tell the occupant of the home: ‘Mind your own f***ing business.’
Scott knocked the door but there was no answer, after which she could been seen pointing behind her, indicating that it could have been a different neighbour who had called the police on them.
As Scott left and walked off screen Howell could be heard chuntering: ‘Little dickheads yeah, see what happens now *inaudible* burn your house.’
A few days later a concerned resident made a chilling report to the police saying: ‘Hello, it sounds like my neighbours are being bad to their kid in the bath, like they are really hurting them.’
She described banging and thrashing sounds as well as shouting and swearing in what was to be a harrowing precursor to the fatal attack on Alfie six months later when he was found unresponsive in cold bathwater.
Howell and Scott were also convicted of child cruelty offences at Coventry Crown Court, with Justice Mark Wall branding the pair ‘sadistic’ for their 18-month campaign of beatings and ‘excessive’ punishments to Alfie.
The nine-year-old was regularly struck with belts, forced under water in cold baths, deprived of food and woken up in the middle of the night to be marched outside and doused in water.
Justice Wall said: ‘You, Howell, are a cruel man with a fiery and, at times, uncontrollable temper.
‘The evidence revealed time and time again that anyone who crossed you was met with threats – such as that to burn down a neighbour’s house when she reported you to the police about your conduct – or abuse – such as was suffered by the lady who confronted you about your behaviour in Sainsbury’s when you were bawling.
He added: ‘You are a man who likes to control his environment and everyone in it. You do not brook dissent.
‘This attitude I am sure explains your repeated use of wholly unacceptable violence on those who could not fight back. You are a bully. Coupled with that I am sure that you got pleasure from inflicting pain.’
In early August 2020 a neighbour’s Ring doorbell captured Scott approach their home, seemingly on the orders of Howell
She looked off screen and asked her boyfriend to ‘come down’ and join her but he barked back ‘knock the door’, before instructing Scott to tell the occupant of the home: ‘Mind your own f***ing business.’
As Scott left and walked off screen Howell could be heard chuntering: ‘Little dickheads yeah, see what happens now *inaudible* burn your house.’
Judge Mark Wall KC told the killers earlier this week: ‘I have no doubt this is a killing of which the seriousness is particularly high.
‘That is because it is the murder of a child, involving sadistic conduct and his death was the culmination of a series of cruel and violent acts towards him.
‘What is clear is that Alfie did not have the quiet death that you tried to portray. His death was violent and brutal.
‘Alfie tried to say no, called in vain for his grandfather to help and resisted to get into the bath and maybe it was that resistance that sealed his fate.
‘Alfie died either through drowning, concussive head trauma or mechanical asphyxia. For the purpose of this sentence it does not matter which.
‘The true cause of his death was your cruel misconduct towards him.
‘It was also due to your failing to call the authorities sometime after his death. You Miss Scott told police there was an hour or more before calling the police.
‘Had you called the authorities immediately as any parent would have done you would have not made the mistake on timings.
‘You delayed as you needed that time while Alfie laid dead to try to conceive what you had done.
‘You did this by putting him in a warm bath to warm him up and to get your stories straight.’
Addressing Scott, he added: ‘Your first thought was to protect your co-accused.
‘You had a need for male companionship even of the inadequate type on offer by Howell above your duty to protect your children.
‘You were capable of resisting this had you wanted to do so. It is revealing you have maintained your relationship after he killed your son.
‘You were capable of standing up to him and chose not to do so with fatal results for your own son.’
Alfie had 50 separate injuries across his head, back, legs and buttocks after being assaulted by his mother and her fiance, Coventry Crown Court heard
Alfie’s mother Scott, 35, has been handed jail sentences totaling 27 years
Meanwhile, West Mercia Police promised to learn lessons from the tragic case.
In a statement outside court, Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Leighton Harding, said: ‘We are aware that the family were known to West Mercia Police and other agencies prior to Alfie’s death.
‘The jury heard evidence of 999 calls from neighbours and reports from other people regarding concerns over Scott and Howell’s conduct and treatment of Alfie, which led to Police and other agencies having contact and involvement with the family in the months before Alfie’s death.
‘I recognise the concerns and questions this raises. I can provide assurance that West Mercia Police is committed to reviewing its involvement with the family and engagement with other agencies through a Child Safeguarding Practice Review commissioned by Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership.
‘We are committed to learning lessons from Alfie’s tragic death and will fully engage with the review. An independent reviewer has already been appointed and will continue the review at pace now that the criminal case has ended.
‘Once completed, the author will publish their report, therefore until that time I would not wish to speculate on its potential findings.’
Scott’s neighbours in Droitwich said Alfie’s death was ‘avoidable’, as they condemned social workers and other authorities for failing to intervene sooner, with one calling for a public inquiry into the failings.
One neighbour who reported seeing Alfie being screamed at by Howell in the garden said: ‘All of us living in the houses that back on to their garden reported it to the police.
‘We reported [the defendants] to the police, social services, the school where Alfie went and even the housing association but nothing was done.
‘On one occasion, we saw a police officer in one of the upstairs windows looking out at the garden so we knew the police had gone in. They must have seen the conditions they were living in.’
She said the couple were nicknamed the ‘ferals’ because they didn’t get involved with anyone in the street.
‘The house was always shut up, the windows closed and the curtains drawn, it makes you think now “What was going on?”
The six-week trial heard that Howell had repeatedly flouted a requirement from social services that he did not stay overnight at the property, where Alfie was found with more than 50 different injuries.
Howell had been at the house when Alfie died, but cowardly fled to a train station, where police bodycam footage, which was played to the court, captured his arrest as he tried to board a train.
Howell was alleged to have picked Alfie up and thrown him in the bath – causing a ‘sickening thud’ – after repeatedly beating him in one of the bedrooms where jurors heard just a mattress lay on the floor.
The trial was played the emergency call made by Scott – who was still dressed in a vest and knickers when police arrived at the address that afternoon – claiming her son had ‘fallen asleep’ and drowned in the bath. Displayed on her living room wall were the words: ‘Family, where life begins.’
Alfie was pronounced dead after being admitted to hospital.
Howell can be seen rushing across the bridge over the railway tracks before trying to board a stationary train before he was arrested by police for murdering his stepson
In the months leading up to his death, the court heard teachers noted the schoolboy was ‘constantly hungry’.
Social workers told Scott to give Alfie a bigger breakfast or send him to school with more snacks, but Scott claimed ‘he was the kind of kid who ate everything in sight’, the court heard.
The jury heard the family had been on a Child in Need plan which had been escalated in 2019 to a more serious and non-voluntary Child Protection Plan. Under this, Howell was banned from unsupervised access to Alfie or from staying overnight.
A chance to save Alfie was missed 11 months before his death when discussions took place on whether to remove the boy from Scott’s care. But because the mother was seen to be working with social workers at that stage, it was deemed the situation did not cross the threshold for removal.
Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said Scott had Alfie during a previous relationship-in which children’s services had involvement with the boy’s father.
She started dating Howell in July 2019, two years after separating from Alfie’s father. Within six months the new couple were engaged, but the relationship was ‘not a happy one’ for Alfie, the barrister said.
Ms Heeley said Howell’s idea of discipline was a lot more ‘physical and psychological’ than ‘the naughty step, or having set bed times’, and could involve beatings with rubber flip-flops.
This included holding Alfie under cold water in the bath for a prolonged amount of time whenever they believed he was lying.
Medical experts said bruises suggested he had been ‘manhandled’ and others marks on his buttocks were from being kicked by an adult who ‘had lost control’.
Ms Heely said Alfie died after being ‘beaten and deliberately put in a cold bath’ and he had been ‘made to endure a life that no child should lead’.
She added: ‘Alfie had not simply fallen asleep in a comfortable bath.
‘He had been deliberately and repeatedly assaulted, beaten, and put into and held under a cold bath as a punishment.
‘That unlawful course of conduct, that unnecessary punishment, was carried out jointly by Carla Scott and Dirk Howell.
‘It was their actions that led to his death.’
Around six months before the defendants killed Alfie, a neighbour made a harrowing call to police reporting ‘thrashing’ sounds coming from the bathroom.
Gemma Allcott told the operator in the August 2020 call: ‘It sounds like my neighbours are doing something bad to the their kid in the bath… like they are really hurting them.’
Ms Allcott told the Daily Mail she hoped there would now be public inquiry into the authorities’ interactions with the defendants and their helpless victim.
The trial heard how punishments dished out to Alfie included ‘dunking’ him ‘in cold baths while naked’, and forcing him to ‘stand outside, in the middle of the night and have cold water’ thrown over him.
