Alfie Steele: Murder accused man smacked boy days before he died

A man on trial for the murder of his girlfriend’s son said he hit the boy with a belt four days before his death.

Nine-year-old Alfie Steele was found unresponsive in a bath at his home in Droitwich in February 2021.

Giving evidence at Coventry Crown Court, Dirk Howell admitted he was in the house when Alfie died and that he had lied in his defence statements.

He has admitted child cruelty offences but denies murder alongside his co-defendant and Alfie’s mum, Carla Scott.

Mr Howell, 41, had previously claimed he was not in the property on Vashon Drive when Alfie died but told jurors he had in fact been in Ms Scott’s bedroom listening to music.

He described the moment his co-accused burst into the room carrying Alfie who had stopped breathing.

“I jumped off the bed, told her to call an ambulance and started to do CPR,” he said.

When asked by his defence lawyer, Alisdair Williamson KC, why he decided to leave before emergency services arrived, Mr Howell said he “didn’t want to be around that situation” and that “it was a mess”.

He said it was “not correct”, as prosecutors alleged, that he “panicked and ran”.

After leaving the house, Mr Howell was detained by police officers trying to board a train.

It is the prosecution’s case that Alfie, who was covered in bruises, died after being repeatedly assaulted, beaten, and held in a cold bath as part of a cruel discipline regime.

Asked about Alfie’s punishments, Mr Howell said he started smacking him from October 2020. Contrary to a defence statement in which he said he would dunk the boy in a cold bath “on the odd occasion”, in court he said that was not true.

He said he would shout at Alfie but denied putting him in a shed or forcing him to stand outside at night.

When asked about a time-stamped video taken by a neighbour of Alfie screaming to be let into the house for about half an hour, he said it had been exaggerated.

“I told him to go outside once when he was having a tantrum which everyone obviously heard him screaming and shouting,” Mr Howell said.

“Not for the amount of time that they claimed but he was out there for about five minutes.”

Mr Howell also agreed when asked by prosecutors whether he was “comfortable lying to police” after footage was shown to the court of him giving a false name to officers who confronted him about shouting at children.

“I’m blunt,” said Mr Howell, who estimated he had spent about 22 years of his life in prison. “I can be angry and I can be aggressive.”