The layabout mother who tortured little Alfie Steele to death

The layabout mother and her career criminal boyfriend who tortured little Alfie Steele to death: How neighbours rallied round in a desperate bid to save schoolboy, nine, as his shameless mother partied, left him to live in filth and put her boyfriend first

• Alfie Steele, 9, had more than 50 injuries when he was found in a bath dead

Posing for the camera without a care in the world, this is killer mother Carla Scott letting her hair down at a neighbourhood birthday party.

Scott was something of a notorious figure in The Scotlands, a working class estate in north Wolverhampton, where she lived before moving to Worcestershire.

Within weeks of moving in to the council house where she would give birth to Alfie on the living room floor, Scott revelled in games of strip poker with a couple across the road, neighbours recalled.

The residents told how they felt compelled to clean the shameless mother’s home, only for her to quickly let it descend back into an ‘utterly filthy’ state.

‘I spent all morning cleaning the place – the kitchen in particular’, one woman said. ‘Then within an hour, the place was a tip again.

Alfie Steele died after his lifeless body was pulled from a bath having suffered more than 50 injuries at the hands of the evil mother and her partner in February 2021

Posing for the camera without a care in the world, this is killer mother Carla Scott letting her hair down at a neighbourhood birthday party

Scott was something of a notorious figure in The Scotlands, a working class estate in north Wolverhampton. She lived there before moving to Worcestershire

‘Carla never put anything away.’

Another man added: ‘She had Virgin cable TV and it was disconnected for non-payment. Then she got BT Sport or something similar, and the same thing happened. Then bailiffs turned up because she had defaulted on her payments for something she had bought in town.’

Both neighbours recalled how Scott – who often dressed provocatively – would visit a house yards from her own to play strip poker with the young couple living there, although there was no suggestion of any further sexual conduct between the trio.

Julie Peacock has lived on the Wolverhampton estate where Carla used to live for more than 30 years and was among the mothers and grandmothers who took it upon themselves to look after little Alfie.

‘Alfie would often come round to play and really was the most polite and lovely little boy’, she said. ‘There were a group of us on the estate who just felt sorry about how neglected he always was and because he was always wandering round on the street outside his house, we used to take him in and give him his meals.

‘He was really thin, was usually in his school uniform and was always starving hungry. Some kids can be picky about what they eat but whatever you gave him, he would gobble it down.’

Mrs Peacock said Scott never seemed to worry about how chaotic her life was or how untidy her home.

One former neighbour of Scott said she never seemed to worry about how chaotic her life was or how untidy her home

Alfie had 50 separate injuries across his head, back, legs and buttocks after being assaulted by his mother and her fiancé, Coventry Crown Court heard

She added: ‘We’d often see her with Alfie at the local working men’s club’.

‘Carla was nice enough, but she was more interested in herself than anyone else really. We’d all be buying Alfie crisps and pop and she’d be buying herself drinks.

‘She was always dressed in short skirts and books with tight top tops on, she wasn’t slim but she liked the attention. In fact, if anything, she seemed to crave attention.

‘When I went to her house, I used to tell her she needed to tidy the place up and clean because it was so dirty but nothing ever changed. It was one of those houses where you felt like wiping your feet as you came out rather than as you went in.’

She said the house had no carpets, and just mattresses in the bedrooms – without any bedding.

Joanne Keen, 35, was Carla Scott’s best friend from the time they met at the age of 11 at Berrybrook Primary School in Wolverhampton to when they left Moreton Secondary School in the city at 16.

‘We sat next to each other in primary for Maths, English and Art and because we were both dyslexic’, she said. ‘We used to do our reading together in a different classroom.

‘As Carla got older, she was always going out with different boys, I thought she was quite needy and always seemed to end up with the kind who didn’t stay with her. I wanted to go to college after school but she just wanted to find a job. I’m not sure that she ever got one.’

Today Scott (pictured partying) was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter by a majority verdict following more than 10 hours of deliberations

A photo of newborn baby Alfie. He died at nine-years-old in February 2021

Carla Scott (left) and Dirk Howell (right) were on trial at Coventry Crown Court. They have both been convicted of killing Alfie 

Police video footage captured Scott making a phone call to Howell, to ask him where he was and tells him: ‘He’s gone up to hospital they won’t let me go up there yet.’

Miss Keen said social services were involved with Scott even when she lived in Wolverhampton. She added: ‘I don’t think Carla was that interested in being a mum because other friends who knew her in the area said they never saw her out (with Alfie).’

Scott became friendly with Stephanie and David Newton, who lived near the housing association property she later settled in.

The couple recalled how Scott and her partner ‘never kept the house clean’ – leading to regular visits from social workers.

The couple lost contact with Scott after she separated from her partner – Alfie’s father – and moved to Droitwich, telling friends she needed a ‘fresh start’.

Stephanie, 33, said social services ‘will have a lot of questions to answer’, adding: ‘It makes you stick sick to your stomach to think what Alfie might have been subjected to behind closed doors. Why didn’t social services do more before it was too late?’

Mr Newton, 47, said: ‘Alfie was a lovely little man. He didn’t really say anything when he was here apart from asking me to put Arsenal on the telly. It was his team and he loved watching them play.

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