TRAGIC ALFIE’S SILENT SCREAMS: Police visited house of horrors TWENTY times but never once spoke to murdered boy alone as mum covered for killer boyfriend
They had twenty chances to save him. Twenty times police knocked on the door of the house where little Alfie Steele was being subjected to unimaginable cruelty. Yet not once did they speak to the terrified nine-year-old alone.
Now a damning watchdog report has laid bare the catastrophic failures that allowed Alfie’s evil mother and her sadistic boyfriend to beat, torture and ultimately murder him in their Worcestershire home.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct found that despite “significant” contact with West Mercia Police over three years, officers never heard Alfie’s voice – because his manipulative mother Carla Scott always answered for him.
In a house ruled by fear, where compliance meant survival, the youngster had learned to play dead – pretending to be asleep whenever police arrived, sometimes just minutes after violent incidents.
The warning that went unheeded
Perhaps most chilling was a 999 call just six months before Alfie’s murder. A concerned neighbour reported hearing a man shouting and someone “thrashing around in the bath.”
Their haunting words to the emergency operator? “Maybe he’s being hit and held under the water.”
Two officers checked on Alfie after this report, finding him apparently asleep in his room. They lacked powers to remove monster Dirk Howell from the home, so contacted children’s services the next day.
An officer even noted that random safeguarding visits would be beneficial. They never happened.
Six months later, Alfie was dead – his head held underwater in that same bath.
Fifty injuries and a lifetime of terror
When paramedics finally saw Alfie’s battered body in February 2021, they counted 50 injuries covering the little boy from head to toe. The culmination of months of what prosecutors called “indescribable” cruelty.
His mother Scott, 35, was jailed for 27 years for manslaughter. Her partner Howell, 41, is serving a minimum of 32 years for murder.
But questions remained about how the system failed this vulnerable child so spectacularly.
A revolving door of missed opportunities
The IOPC investigation uncovered a pattern of systemic failure. Between March 2018 and February 2021, police had 20 separate interactions with the family.
Yet incredibly, a different officer or PCSO attended each time. No one built a picture of escalating abuse. No one gained Alfie’s trust. No one gave him a chance to speak.
Alfie’s voice was never heard by police,” the watchdog concluded, in perhaps the most damning indictment of all.
Living in extreme compliance
The report paints a heartbreaking picture of a child so terrorised he’d learned to disappear on command. Within minutes of violent incidents, officers would find him in bed, apparently fast asleep.
This “extreme compliance” – a survival mechanism adopted by abused children – should have rung alarm bells. Instead, it allowed his tormentors to maintain their facade.
Lockdown only intensified Alfie’s isolation, severely reducing his already tiny world and eliminating any chance of escape or disclosure to teachers or friends.
‘No misconduct’ but countless failures
While the IOPC found no evidence of individual misconduct, their report identified multiple failings:
- Officers lacked “professional curiosity”
- Police never spoke to Alfie alone, against best practice
- No continuity between visits meant patterns weren’t spotted
- Warning markers weren’t used effectively
- Referrals to children’s services were inconsistent
Ten officers and PCSOs have been told to undertake “reflective practice” – a recommendation that feels woefully inadequate given the tragic outcome.
Too little, too late
West Mercia Police has now implemented sweeping changes, including training “hundreds more officers” to ensure children’s voices are heard and improving information sharing systems.
The force says everyone who works there now knows Alfie’s story. A legacy that comes far too late for one little boy who desperately needed someone – anyone – to hear his silent screams.
IOPC director Derrick Campbell offered his sympathies to Alfie’s family but noted that Scott “failed to put his safety and wellbeing before her loyalty to her partner.
An understatement that barely scratches the surface of a mother’s ultimate betrayal.
Never again?
As Alfie’s killers rot in jail, questions remain about a system that allowed a vulnerable child to slip through every safety net.
Twenty visits. Twenty missed chances. Twenty times adults failed to protect a child who couldn’t protect himself.
The watchdog insists lessons have been learned. New procedures are in place. Training has been improved.
But for Alfie Steele, whose voice was never heard and whose suffering went unseen, these changes are twenty visits too late.
