The son of a former Tory minister jailed in 2019 for crushing his girlfriend’s three-year-old son to death with an electronic car seat has been released from prison.

Stephen Waterson, 30, admitted manslaughter of Alfie Lamb after he reversed the front passenger seat onto him while the toddler sat at his mother’s feet in the footwell behind.

He did it while annoyed that the boy wouldn’t stop crying, a court heard. The maximum space in the footwell was 30cm, but this could be reduced to just 9.5cm.

The child began crying and choking, but his mother Adrian Hoare told him to ‘shut up’ before Waterson put the seat forward again.

By the time the trio arrived at Waterson’s home in Croydon, south London, after they had been out shopping, Alfie had collapsed and stopped breathing.

He died at St Thomas’ Hospital from catastrophic brain damage caused by being crushed on 4 February 2018, three days later.

Waterson was not due for release until 2023 and is on licence until 2025, after being jailed for manslaughter and perverting the course of justice by lying to police, and intimidating witnesses.

A source close to the family said they only had notification Waterson was due for release after he’d already been freed.

Waterson, the adopted son of former Tory MP Nigel Waterson, was described by police as ‘arrogant, selfish and deeply unpleasant’. He tried to avoid prosecution by repeatedly lying and intimidating witnesses.

He denied manslaughter during an earlier trial in which the jury were unable to reach a verdict, before pleading guilty on the first day of his retrial.

During sentencing, Old Bailey judge Mr Justice Timothy Kerr told Waterson that he was ‘manipulative, dishonest, deceitful, controlling, threatening, and sometimes violent’.

Hairdresser Hoare, who was 24 at the time while Waterson was 26, was jailed in May 2019 after being convicted of child cruelty.

While her two year and nine month sentence was also cut short, she was recalled to prison last year for breaching her licence conditions.

Before going back however, Hoare, who has lived in both Gravesend and Chatham, told a newspaper she was a good mum.

Hoare, a former Northfleet School for Girls pupil, was cleared of manslaughter.

Waterson is understood to have served 567 days on remand prior to being sentenced in November 2019, meaning his total time behind bars was around three years and he reached the halfway point of his sentence on licence.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said: ‘This was a despicable crime and our sympathies remain with the family.

‘Waterson has been released under probation supervision after serving the prison part of his sentence but can be returned there if he breaches the strict conditions he is under.’

The Ministry of Justice also said it is launching an investigation into why Alfie’s family were not notified of Waterson’s release and will be apologising to them directly.

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