Alfie Steele: Mum and partner jailed for killing boy's 'sadistic' killing

A parent and her spouse who killed her nine-year-old lad successful the bath pursuing months of maltreatment person been jailed.

Alfie Steele drowned aft being held nether the h2o arsenic punishment astatine his location successful Droitwich, Worcestershire, successful February 2021.

He had been subjected to a cruel authorities and his assemblage had much than 50 injuries.

Dirk Howell was recovered blameworthy of Alfie's murder. His mother, Carla Scott, was convicted of manslaughter but cleared of murder.

At their sentencing astatine Coventry Crown Court, Howell was jailed for beingness with a minimum of 32 years, portion Scott was fixed 27 years.

Mr Justice Mark Wall told them the suffering they inflicted connected Alfie could "only decently beryllium described arsenic sadistic".

During the six-week trial, jurors heard however Alfie's last months were punctuated by being repeatedly beaten, forced to basal extracurricular and dunked caput archetypal into acold baths.

Prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC said the defendants thought it was acceptable to deed him with "belts, oregon a slider, similar a heavy-duty flip flop, and usage different much sinister forms of punishment".

Scott, of Vashon Drive, Droitwich, and Howell, of Princip Street, Birmingham, had denied the charges against them.