‘A tragic and needless end’
Social services probed over boy’s car seat death – as mum guilty of cruelty
SOCIAL services are facing troubling questions over the death of a threeyear-old boy crushed by a car seat after his mother was found guilty of child cruelty yesterday. Adrian Hoare, 23, let her son Alfie Lamb sit between her legs in the rear footwell of an Audi A4 convertible during a shopping trip.
Her boyfriend Stephen Waterson, the adopted son of former Tory minister Nigel Waterson, is said to have moved his electric seat backwards on to Alfie ‘in a fit of childish temper’, jurors were told. The boy was crushed ‘at the touch of a button’ and he suffered a heart attack. Alfie died in hospital three days later when his life support was switched off.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC told the court the youngster’s ‘all too short life was brought to an early, tragic, and needless end’.
Hoare sobbed yesterday when she was found guilty of child cruelty and of assaulting a witness. She was cleared of manslaughter.
The Old Bailey jury failed to reach a decision on whether Waterson was guilty of manslaughter but found him guilty of intimidation of a witness in the case. He faces a retrial on the manslaughter charge.
Hoare and Waterson both previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by making false statements to the police.
It can now be revealed that a serious case review has been launched
‘Cried out in pain’
to examine whether social services departments could have done more to protect the toddler.
Alfie and his mother were known to social services when they lived with the boy’s biological father richard Lamb in Chatham, Kent.
Lamb ‘become violent’ towards the end of their relationship and set fire to Hoare’s flat when she broke up with him. He was subsequently jailed for three years for arson.
Social workers from Medway Council monitored Hoare to see if she was capable of looking after Alfie on her own, the Old Bailey was told. But months later she moved to Blackpool where she met Water- son before moving into his flat in Croydon, South London.
It remains unclear whether Hoare and Alfie had any contact with the social services in these two areas. The serious case review is being carried out by Medway Safeguarding Children’s Board. A source said it is being carried out for ‘learning and improvement’.
Alfie was sitting in the footwell of the Audi when Waterson put his seat back to ‘stretch his legs’ on the return from a shopping trip in February last year, the court was told. When Alfie cried out in pain, he angrily forced his chair back a second time because he refused ‘to be told what to do by a three-year-old’.
Instead of telling Waterson to put his seat forward, Hoare told her choking child to ‘shut up’. When he went quiet she thought he was asleep. And when she lifted his limp body out of the car, she thought he was play-acting.
By the time an ambulance was called, Alfie had suffered a heart attack. He died three days later.
Summing up the case, Mr Atkinson said: ‘The person upon who Alfie was most entitled to rely on failed him fundamentally and fatally.’
When the police opened their investigation, Waterson gave a false name to officers and repeatedly lied about what happened, jurors were told. Both he and Hoare threatened two other people who had been in the car.
Detective Chief Inspector Simon Harding, who led the inquiry, said: ‘I don’t think anyone could imagine the pain Alfie went through.’
Hoare and Waterson will be sentenced on March 4.