26-year-old pleads guilty to fatally crushing 3-year-old Alfie Lamb in fit of 'childish temper' by reversing his car seat
The son of a former UK government minister has pleaded guilty to crushing a three-year-old boy to death with his car seat, according to reports. The man, identified as 26-year-old Stephen Waterson, squashed Alfie Lamb in his Audi convertible while the child's mother Adrian Hoare, whom he was dating at that time, looked on at the cruelty in February last year.
Waterson, the adopted son of former Tory minister Nigel Waterson, later attempted to orchestrate a cover-up in an attempt to avoid being implicated in Lamb's death and gave officers a fake name. Waterson's guilty plea came nearly seven months after 24-year-old Hoare from Gravesend, Kent was found guilty of child cruelty and was sentenced to prison for two years and nine months during an Old Bailey trial.
Judge Mark Lucraft QC remanded Waterson into custody to be sentenced on Monday, September 9.
Waterson, 25, however, denied Lamb's manslaughter charge and was ordered to face a trial after a jury failed to reach a verdict in his case. He, however, changed his plea last Wednesday afternoon ahead of his fresh trial and admitted to the child's manslaughter by gross negligence, according to the Daily Mail.
Hoare and Waterson had earlier admitted to conspiring to cover-up the crime by lying to police about the details. Reports state that Waterson was convicted of intimidating a witness and Hoare of assaulting another witness.
Scotland Yard's detective chief inspector Simon Harding, while talking about Waterson, described him as "arrogant, selfish and deeply unpleasant." Harding added that with Waterson's confession justice was served to the child.
During the tragic February 2018 incident, the child's mother allegedly slapped the toddler and told him to be quiet as he wanted to get comfortable in the rear footwell of a car. Lamb died after Waterson pushed back his seat into him because he was annoyed by the toddler. The incident occurred shortly after Hoare put the child in the rear footwell of the Audi. As Waterson was crushing the child, Hoare did nothing to help him.
Waterson's half-sister, Samantha Dawson, while addressing the court in January this year, said that she witnessed the mother put the child in the footwell, which made him "cry and scream". She then claimed that Hoare told her son: "Shut up or I will give you something to cry for." As Lamb moaned, Waterson reversed his seat into the child, saying: "I won't be told what to do by a three-year-old." He then pushed the seat back again "in a fit of childish temper".
The court heard that Waterson moved his seat back twice and "kept it in a reversed position" until Alfie "went ominously quiet" before making "choking noises". The child, who was "squashed and suffocated by the car seat", reportedly died three days later after suffering a cardiac arrest at the couple's home in Croydon.
The Old Bailey, on Thursday, heard how little Alfie had collapsed on the journey back to Croydon from a shopping trip in Sutton. The couple reportedly realized that something was wrong with the "happy, active, smiley" boy and Waterson pulled him out of the car and tried to revive him. The child suffered a massive heart attack and his life support machine was turned off three days after the incident.
According to a pathologist, Alfie died from crush asphyxia caused by the car seat.