Alfie Steele

[Ffswhatsthepoint]

I checked there was no other thread before I posted this one. Alfie, 9, killed by mum and her bf. Drowned. A catalogue of abuse and many phone calls to police/ss by neighbours. The neighbours often fed him too. We HAVE to find people accountable in this case. It was reported. People knew. Nothing was done. Absolutely nothing. Its harrowing. I feel like I failed him. And I'm hundreds of miles away.

It's not possible to prevent all child deaths. Sadly.

@Jellycatspyjamas @WilkinsonM

Thank you for your replies. And all that you are taking the time to outline.

I think I phrased my question badly.

I think I know what you're both saying, along the same lines that it is actually impossible to prevent all "never incidents" (ie ones that should never ever have happened) in medical care for instance.

But in Alfie's case, where 999 calls were being made during the grotesque torture and abuse being done to him - I mean, at the very time it was actually taking place - how did he actually get left in that house??

How did we fail Alfie so much that Police were called via 999, Police attended, Police knew about that evil man already, Police being the only ones that could actually have taken him immediately away (albeit for 72hrs initially) - and yet Alfie still did not get taken to safety?

My mam was brought up with an abusive, violent, miser as a father. He beat the youngest child out of my granny when she was 6 months pregnant and that was the finish for her. She went against her strong Catholic faith and he was sent to prison. I think the prison sentence was very rare then as violence towards your wife in the 50s was quite normal. The police were called dozens of times in the past but only when he killed an unborn child were they interested.

My granny brought her surviving 3 children up alone and never allowed another man into her life until the day she died. She still lived a happy life and children and grandchildren were everything. She would never allow raised voices around us grandchildren, we were cherished.

My mam married three times by the time I was 11. Looking back, I would say that was not an ideal childhood. Luckily my two stepfathers are lovely, kind men. I am largely unscathed from my early years.

Maybe the difference was my mam got herself a well paid profession before she married so she never needed to stick around with a man when she didn't have to.

I have broken the cycle. My own husband is an amazing dad and husband. I never wanted the same for my kids as the two generations before.

I see women through my work who literally go from one shit relationship to another dragging their kids behind them. I have to say that since the 2 child limit came in for UC, I have seen fewer women forced to go on and have more than 2 children (it used to sometimes be seen as a way for the man to get more money from the system). A few have told me they will be having an abortion when I tell them they won't receive more UC for a third child.

That is something I cannot understand. HOW can the police call at a house just after that assault and let Alfie remain there, or not arrest or remove Howell and take him away for questioning? Surely that evil pair couldn't have been that convincing so soon after torturing a 9 year old. They should have looked into who Howell was and why he was at the house. Its horrific to think of children being let down so badly.

So they get their protection in prison.
The social workers get their protection. They get to keep their jobs. We don't know who they are.

Where was the child's protection?He lived in fear everyday of 2 horrible sick creatures and nobody protected him.

System needs an overhaul and jail dosent seem to be a deterrent anymore.
The boyfriend has already spend years in prison, obvs it's not a deterrent.

A

I used to be a probation officer. It was the same thing there. No one saw the literally thousands of people myself and my colleagues helped turn their lives around. Thus preventing further crimes. The public only ever heard about probation when something went seriously wrong. It's quite soul destroying.

When I left it was the same issue with ridiculously high caseloads and just simply not enough hours in the day. I was contracted to 37 hours. I would have needed at least double that to even attempt to keep on top of things. Even if I had the energy for that you don't get paid for any additional hours you do and the base pay isn't great for all the stress involved. I knew then and now that social services had the same issues. i certainly wouldnt want to be a social worker.

I can tell you one simple thing that wouldn't necessarily solve all the problems but would go a long way to helping. Much larger and well organised administrative teams. Free up these professionals from all of the admin work that takes up far too much of their time and could be done by support staff. Thus freeing more hours up for them to do the important work. By the end of my time as a probation officer I was spending 10% of my time with people 90% on paperwork. Most of which could have been massively speeded up by having more admin and something like dictation software. Many of the reports etc that would take me hours, large swathes of that could have been filled in by an admin worker in advance. But they wanted to save money by getting rid of the majority of our admin 🙄

This sounds so compliant and non chalance. Shouldn't we at least try?

OMG!!!
I've been a social worker for 15 years. I try and succeed every single day! Of course we try. But calls to eradicate every single child death are impossible: that's just a fact.

I know sw try, and try and try, and we appreciate that. I was just referring to your post, which simply said with one sentence, we can't save everyone. That sounds like closing a debate, sounds dismissive. Sorry can't save, doing my best. I know you're under pressure, but you need to verbalise the pressure and we as a society need to get to the bottom of this and try to save every single one. Surely you'd agree....

This, a million times over.

There are so many public sector roles now where you aren't actually helping make things better for people which is likely what you would hope to be doing in CP or SEN or the NHS, all you are managing to do is slow down the rate of things getting worse. It is truly dispiriting and why so many professionals are leaving.

You have absolutely no grip on reality if you think that it would be remotely reasonable to expect social care to prevent every child death.

We need to do better as a society, and that includes social workers but it also includes the government funding services properly and addressing poverty, the housing crisis etc...it's a huge undertaking and the whole social system needs to do better.

I know you're under pressure, but you need to verbalise the pressure and we as a society need to get to the bottom of this and try to save every single one. Surely you'd agree....

Every time there’s a high profile child death these threads pop up and every single time folk as what is needed. There are countless posts on this thread alone clearly explaining what would help, while also acknowledging that what is needed is unpalatable in terms of cost.

There’s no magic wand here - well resourced services from social work, to education, health, police, family support services, a decent income to people in poverty, access to good quality therapy to support people with issues around trauma. These things would actually make a difference - the issues are systemic and so are the solutions.

And even with all those things in place there will still sadly be children who die at the hands of their parents or carers, because of the lengths people will go to to hide from services, if someone really wants to hurt someone else - adult or child - there are limits to how far we can go to stop them.

Decriminalising abortion would also help, as would parents estranged from their children by new partners being completely supported to get sole custody of their children. In a few cases the other parent/wider family had no idea what was actually happening to the child due to control being applied by the new partner and finding it virtually impossible to see their child alone.

Safeguarding is rightly the job of everyone but the reports need to have enough staff across all the various bodies to actually be able to safeguard those who are vulnerable and need protection.

I'm sure people wouldn't mind high taxes if they could see that they were being spent where they were needed rather than the government spaffing it all away on lining their mates' pockets.

It's utterly tragic and completely wrong that this should ever happen to any child 😢😢😢

There are sadly, so many cases like this - Baby P, Victoria Climbe, Alfie Steele to name just three.

While it absolutely should be the case that every single call is answered, I'm not sure people realise how very over stretched services are. I am absolutely not saying it is right, just stating a fact.

To give an example, I grew up in a medium sized town. In the 80s and 90s, my father was a police officer. In those days, the divisional HQ in the town centre paraded on shift with 18 officers. There were then two smaller stations, each parading on with 4 each and one tiny one in the rural parts that had 2, or a desk sergeant plus 1. So, each shift had 28 officers.

Now, the smaller stations gone and HQ parade on with just 9 officers per shift!

The deputy head at the school where I teach told me that local SS are desperately overstretched and this is in an area of high deprivation where they are absolutely needed.

As schools, we are stretched and trying to plug whatever gaps we can, often with limited success. I have a child in my form who have a child who is severely disabled. There is no neglect but they could desperately use more support, except there is no capacity.

Ambulances are the same - an elderly person my mum.cares for fell, cut head, suspected broken hip. Should be a priority call, except it took 5 hours for an ambulance because all were tied up on jobs.

We so desperately need more social workers, police, school staff etc 😥 to be able to get to every single call quickly.

Cases like this absolutely should not happen under any circumstances, but I do think it's important to realise that it isn't always the services at fault.

People vote Tory over and over. People want lower public spending and yet also somehow to protect and safeguard children. It doesn't add up, but that's what the people want.

Yes, police officers halved, teachers, nurses going to food banks, sw under immense pressure, strikes... Yet people vote tory... Next time a child is tortured to death, a little bit of society also need to look themselves in the mirror...

How can anyone be so utterly foul?

He used to threaten the neighbours and threatened to burn their house down, and mind their own business.

He swore in court too
. I think we need some studies into why some people are utterly terrible.

The problem is the bullies, bully everyone, the social workers, the neighbours, the police, everyone appeases these people until the worst happens.

The ammount of unsuitable parents now due to many varying factors means that having social workers deal with these violent people is not enough. Social workers are not hard or street wise enough to prevent or protect vunerable children.

Fire must be met with fire, and specialized forces must be available to deal with the scum that take out their evilness on children, that poor boy must have been terrified every day of his life and no one dared stand up for him.
I'm ashamed in this day and age that children still cannot be protected.
We are failing children.

I am also ashamed that the legal system thinks about the rights of murderers more than they do the victims, the human rights of a child killer is taken into account whilst the child who has been snuffed out is asigned to memory.

I'm sorry but child killers should never be let out of prison they deserve no human rights.

Further to my posts above, this information has appeared on the BBC website regarding the Police's involvement:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-65977424

Resurrecting this as it’s on news and first time I’ve read about it, the authorities come across as absolutely fucking pathetic. The old ‘clever parents fooled us’ bullshit- how stupid are you?! The neighbours are telling you they’re trying to drown him and NOTHING IS DONE! Horrifying, they were clearly too scared of this man to bother

Hold the people accountable who didn't protect him.
It's the only way.
The boyfriend wasnt even meant to be staying there. Nobody checked and he was living there.

The Coward that he was he ran away from the house after the murder and was arrested at Droitwich Station.
Prison to good for them. Poor Alfie.
Some people are too inadequate and Scummy for words.

Today we learn that more than 60 phone calls were made by neighbours, relatives and other people concerned about what was happening to this poor little boy. But hey lessons will be learned so that's ok then...