THIS is the moment a neighbour told 999 "they're really hurting him" before a nine-year-old boy was found dead in the bath, a court heard.

Carla Scott, 35, and fiancé Dirk Howell, 41, allegedly subjected her son Alfie Steele to a "cruel and sinister" campaign of abuse.

The youngster suffered more than 50 injuries before his lifeless body was found in the bath at home in Droitwich, Worcestershire.

Jurors have now been played audio of neighbour Gemma Allcott's call to 999 to report "thrashing" sounds coming from the house.

She tells the call operator: "It sounds like my neighbours are doing something bad to their kid in the bath.

"Like they are really hurting them."

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Ms Allcott, who made the call around six months before Alfie was found dead, said it sounded like a child being hit and held under the water.

She also told the operators it was "concerning" as she understood social services were involved with the family and the police had been before "a few times", Coventry Crown Court heard.

The neighbour added: "I can still hear banging… I just heard a big bang…. I heard swearing… I heard f***ing something but it just sounded threatening.

"It sounds like a kid was really distressed."

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The court was told Sergeant Samantha Bennett attended the home and found Scott annoyed her neighbour had phoned the police.

She later went to Ms Allcott's home to confront her but the neighbour refused to answer the door, it was said.

Little Alfie was allegedly struck with belts and flip flops in a cruel regime of punishment.

The youngster was also "dunked" in cold water baths and made to stand outside where he had water chucked over him, it is said.

Emergency crews found Alfie in a "dark, dirty and dishevelled" bedroom after the horror unfolded on February 18, 2021.

He had suffered 50 separate injuries across his head, back, legs and buttocks, which eventually caused his death.

In bodycam footage played to jurors, sobbing Scott allegedly lied to police about how he was injured.

She can be heard telling officers: "I think he banged his head when he was in the bath because he's got an [inaudible] on his head."

The court was was also played a 999 call she made claiming Alfie had "fallen asleep" and drowned in the bath.

Scott tells the operator she can "feel a rattle" on his chest but says he is not breathing and making "lots of gargling noises".

The mum adds: "He fell asleep in the bath. He's got asthma. When he was a baby he got pneumonia."

Howell has previously admitted child cruelty against other children but denies murder, manslaughter, cruelty or causing or allowing the death of Alfie.

Scott denies murder, manslaughter, causing or allowing the death of Alfie and child cruelty offences against Alfie and other children.

The trial continues.

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