A SERIES of missed opportunities to properly safeguard a nine-year-old Droitwich boy have been highlighted following an independent review of agency involvement into his case.
Alfie Steele was brutally abused and punished at his home in Droitwich, suffering beatings and being held under bath before his death in February 2021.
The Droitwich boy was known to social services and under some form of child protection plan for at least 18-months prior to his death yet his mother, Carla Scott and her partner, Dirk Howell, continued to deceive those responsible for helping facilitate his support whilst neglecting and abusing him.
Findings of the report
There was overwhelming evidence found in the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership report that rules set out by safeguarding bodies during Alfie’s child protection plan were knowingly ignored by his mother Carla Scott.
Although outright abuse was not established, professionals were aware that Scott was ignoring care guidance and misleading and lying to them.
Police and children’s services visited the home on numerous occasions but failed to see the signs of abuse.
Scott allowed Howell to stay overnight at her home, supervise Alfie alone, and harshly discipline Alfie – all things prohibited by the nine-year-old’s care plan.
His mother also refused to report the abuse Alfie was suffering at the hands of her partner and herself, and solicited Howell’s cannabis use within the home with disregard for its effects on Alfie.
Howell was known to be a violent offender, having been sentenced for physical assault of a train guard in October 2020.
He also had links to the burglary of firearms and was the subject of multiple reports of threatening behaviour towards neighbours.
Howell made no efforts to comply with requests to attend differing core groups, parenting classes, engagement meetings with social workers or anger management classes.
Despite Scott never being subjected to coercion or control from Dirk Howell, an initial confirmatory bias – a tendency to focus on information which confirms original analysis or hypothesis – ultimately led to insufficient consideration that Scott was also a perpetrator of Alfie’s abuse.
This bias has been shown to feature in critical incident reviews, similar to this one, for over 30 years and was also a feature in the death of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes – another young boy, aged 6, who was abused and killed by his father and their partner in Solihull in 2020.
The report read: “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.”
Family members interviewed during the review were clear that all responsibility lies with mother, Carla Scott and her partner Dirk Howell.
A total of eight recommendations were made to agencies in the report.
Further investigation
While in an interview with the BBC, Alfie’s grandfather was quoted saying: “social services acted like it was our fault [with] the way that they were fighting us.”
A freedom of information request made by the BBC also established that Worcestershire County Council were contacted 36 times between 2018 and 2020 by people who were concerned about Alfie’s welfare.
West Mercia Police were also contacted 28 times during the same three years.
Comments from responsible authorities
Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Jones said:
“In the immediate aftermath of Alfie’s murder, we carried out an initial review of West Mercia Police’s involvement with the family.
“As a direct result, enhanced training has been put in place for our front-line 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.
“We’ve also worked to ensure that our officers and staff are aware of and consider alternative measures available to us alongside criminal proceedings, such as civil orders.
“After Alfie’s case had been heard in court, we made a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct to ensure independent assessment of our contact with the family.”
The IOPC investigation remains ongoing.
“We fully support the recommendations of the review and are absolutely committed to working within the partnership to continually develop and improve safeguarding measures for vulnerable children and young people.
“It is with the greatest sadness that we will never be able to undo the dreadful abuse Alfie suffered. Our thoughts remain with all those who knew and loved Alfie,” added assistant chief Jones.
Stephen Eccleston, Independent Chair of Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership said:
“On behalf of the Partnership, I would like to express our heartfelt condolences to all those who knew Alfie and thank the family for their involvement in this review.
“Professionals from a number of agencies were involved with Alfie over an extended period of time.
“This report reflects the amount of contact professionals were having with Alfie, his carers and the local community, and has identified those occasions where practice should have been stronger.
“We are therefore grateful to the independent reviewer for their objective and clear report.
“The review also found that professionals involved with Alfie were hard working, showed care and commitment to Alfie and the family, but were often hampered by two adults who sought to deliberately lie, mislead, and cover up what was happening to this little boy.
“Whilst the investigation and trial were ongoing, the immediate learning from both this case and other child safeguarding practice reviews has resulted in a change of safeguarding practices and activities.
“We are determined, both as a partnership and as individual agencies, to ensure the recommendations in this report are also now used to make a real difference to the safety of children and young people.”
Visit https://www.safeguardingworcestershire.org.uk/csprlibrary/ to read the report.
