Seat crush boy seen ‘running after mum’
JURORS in the trial of a former MP’s son accused of crushing his girlfriend’s three-year-old son with his car seat were yesterday shown a film of the toddler struggling to keep up with his mother and her boyfriend as they strode away.
Alfie Lamb collapsed in Stephen Waterson’s Audi convertible on the way home from a shopping trip on February 1 last year. He died in hospital three days later.
There were four adults, including Alfie’s mother Adrian Hoare, in the car as well as two children forced to sit in the footwell.
Alfie allegedly died because Waterson, the son of ex-Tory MP and minister Nigel Waterson, pushed his seat back on the toddler because he was annoyed with him.
Waterson, 25, and Hoare, 23, both from Croydon, south London, deny Alfie’s manslaughter. Hoare also denies child cruelty.
Yesterday, jurors at the Old Bailey were shown CCTV of the group on the day Alfie died. Alfie appears what to do by a three-yearold.” She also denied that after Alfie died, she did not immediately blame her boyfriend because their relationship was “just too important”.
Mr Atkinson then asked: “He’s crying, he’s unhappy, he’s calling for his mum. Why not pick him up and comfort him, Miss Hoare?
“When Stephen moves the car seat back a second time, why didn’t you pick him up then? Alfie was crying, he was screaming, he was coughing.”
Hoare said: “I would not have been able to get Alfie out of the space because he had not moved his chair.
“I would have found a way of moving Alfie out of the space if I thought there was a serious problem and Alfie couldn’t breathe.”
Hoare also denies common assault on Emilie Williams, who was in the car, and Waterson denies intimidation of the car’s driver, Marcus Lamb.
The couple and Williams have admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice by making false statements to police. The trial continues.