A 10-year-old boy who was "one of the youngest people ever to receive an anti-social behaviour order" went on to become a teenage drugs gang boss but got stabbed 27 times with a machete.
Alfie Hodgin was locked up on Wednesday after being caught with more than £2,000 of heroin and crack cocaine while "slumped on the floor covered in blood" following the vicious attack. This "retribution" came after he had stolen drugs and a graft phone from a county lines ring which he had previously been working for.
The ECHO can now reveal how the now 18-year-old's involvement in the criminal justice system began at an alarmingly young age. In December 2014, when he was only 10, Hodgin was handed an ASBO at Wirral Magistrates' Court after "terrorising the community".
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Put in place for a period of two years, the order banned him from "causing harassment, alarm or distress to members the public" and required him to leave shops and businesses when asked to do so by staff. The primary school pupil was also ordered not to associate with a group of friends in public.
Only a month earlier, his older brother John - then aged 14 - had also received an ASBO. The two youths were "believed to be part of a gang involved in a series of incidents in the north end" of Birkenhead.
Meanwhile, the elder sibling was said to have caused a "litany of trouble" and was "accused of being part of a gang that threw missiles at vehicles and hurled abuse at vulnerable people". But the orders did not prevent them from breaking the law, Alfie receiving his first criminal conviction at the age of 13.
The schoolboy gained a rap sheet featuring offences including theft, criminal damage, assault and breaching his ASBO and was first jailed in 2019 for possession of a bladed article in a public place. Liverpool Crown Court heard this week that Hodgin had been making some progress at the team thanks to guidance from Everton in the Community, and by the time he had been released the coronavirus pandemic had struck and the "opportunity no longer existed" with the charity.
He then received further time behind bars in February 2021 having been caught with drugs, a phone and a "couple of weapons" in his prison cell. The dealer was out on licence when he became involved in peddling class A drugs.
Hodgin, of Manor Road in Liscard, had originally been put to work by an organised crime group to pay off a debt. But he instead stole the gang's graft phone and drugs, turning it into his own operation.
Inevitably, the OCG was not too happy with this and acted ruthlessly. A gang of four men attacked Hodgin with machetes in a street in Ellesmere Port town centre in the early evening of July 14 this year, leaving him with 27 stab wounds and lying in a pool of his own blood.
Pictures sent to the ECHO showed around a dozen police cars responding to the incident, which reportedly saw the assailants approach the victim in a grey SUV before jumping out and attacking him. A large portion of Worcester Road, Worcester Walk and King Street were taped off while an air ambulance landed in a nearby field.
Hodgin spent two weeks in hospital, such were the seriousness of his injuries. But that was far from the end of his problems.
Upon his arrest, police officers slapped the cuffs on him - because he had been found in possession of £1,220 of heroin and £1,100 of crack cocaine at the time of his assault, as well as £1,208 and the graft phone. Hodgin admitted possession of heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply and being concerned in the supply of heroin and crack cocaine and was locked up for two-and-a-half years.
John too was unable to escape the clutches of the underworld. He was handed two years and seven months in 2019 after a chase with a police helicopter in a stolen car following a burglary in Wallasey.
And defence counsel John Weate told the court yesterday morning the "older brother is presently serving a custodial sentence for matters which this defendant finds himself before the court today". He added of Alfie: "From a very young age, probably in his infancy, he has been subjected to living in a violent and criminal environment and a complete mistrust has developed within him of adults and people who may on the face of it be looking to help him.
"Everything has been disrupted by this life experience, which thankfully the vast majority of children don't have to experience. His education was completely and utterly disrupted through bad behaviour and through other issues which existed in his life.
"The glimmer of hope is a suggestion he wants to change. He seems determined to get a grip of his life and to do his level best in the future to make sure he doesn't find himself in this position again."
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