Can’t get over poor baby Preston

Sleep deprivation does not turn people into child abusers. So say millions of exhausted parents.

How did they ever get through the adoption process which i thought took months and months and was very intrusive? Poor Preston didnt stand a chance did he. His birth mother was a convicted murderer and he ended up with these two who I hope every day their lives are made a misery in prison until someone does a Huntley on them. I have a young grandson and cant bear to think of anyone hurting him. Its evil and unforgiveable

These 2 monsters apparently bought a luxury detached home within days of Preston's death and even invited neighbours in for Xmas drinks. They clearly thought they were going to get away with it.

Totally agree.

Yes, we all know sleep deprivation often makes people irritable, emotional and struggle to cope.

But I wasn’t aware that sleep deprivation can result in people wanting to force their penises repeatedly into a baby’s mouth and anus on numerous occasions, eventually culminating in choking the baby to death on their penis.

Oh that’s right - it’s because the above is a load of naive apologist horseshit.

Right. He is a paedophile. A nasty brutish paedophile who wants sex with babies. I hope he suffers pain every single day.

stop analysing. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t stop more cases like this.

Men are the problem. Stop giving men unsupervised access to children. They keep showing us who they are and we keep bleating, “Oh oh but it’s not all men.”

It’s enough men. No more sacrifices in case some men are ok. It’s not good enough.

I think you're being way too kind here tbh. Many new parents have chronic sleep deprivation, it doesnt generally flick a switch and make them violently and repeatedly rape their babies. That was there already in that man's deviant, disgusting character.

If it were "just" a case of hurting the baby through shaking etc out of exhaustion and desperation, it would be bad but your explanation would make sense. But this is so much worse than that.

@PurpleSheep123 I read that one, then I read the one linked to it that covered the victim impact statements from Preston's family and foster parents in more detail than I've seen elsewhere. His poor dad has nightmares about what happened to his son after the autopsy report and turned to drink, his foster parents were going to give up fostering but changed their minds after Preston's death, his mum is heartbroken and talks about her daughter not having her baby brother. How do you explain that to a child?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/i-watched-preston-daveys-paedophile-37315467

DS came up to me while I was reading that article (he's not two yet) saw the pictures of Preston and started chatting to them (he loves other babies/toddlers) which made me cry. I'm glad he can't read yet though.

I've never hated anyone as much as I hate those two, I don't think. Apart from nameless faceless individuals in groups involved in recent atrocities, but these two I know their names and what they look like, so it's different. I honestly don't have a strong enough word to describe those two reprobates. I'm avoiding cunt and twat because they're useful wonderful things and those two low lifes are not.

That beautiful little boy deserved so much better than what he got in this life. At least he's safe now, beyond pain and sorrow.

Oh that sweet, adorable smile of beautiful Preston 💔😢 He was the most gorgeous baby. How anyone could even contemplate hurting him is beyond words. I can't think of this without welling up. The innocence and trust in his face is too much to see.

I hope those depraved men are absolutely terrified from the moment they're in prison.

Newark-born Varley was the second of six children. Reports suggest that that no father is listed on his birth certificate, but mum Karen Graham had been married for 10 years by 1989, and each of the children was given her then-husband's surname, Varley.

The family moved to Blackpool before Varley reached his teenage years. After this point, it's said that Karen's marriage collapsed, and she married for a second time in the summer of 2005. One former neighbour remembers the Varleys as "a nightmare family".

The kids were allowed to do what they wanted, and Jamie was out of control. I reported him for anti-social behaviour and criminal damage once after I asked him to get off my drive, and he stuck a potato up my car exhaust," the woman told The Mail.

"When I read about the court case, I wasn't a bit surprised. He was a little fucking shit. He was horrible. When they all finally moved, we put the flags out," she claimed. The Mirror understands that Varley has no prior criminal convictions.

Varley shown his true face when arrested by the police, hope you’ve seen the video of him threatening the police.
He’s highly manipulative, narcissistic cunt.
I bet he was his mommy’s “golden child”.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/preston-daveys-killers-childhood-arrogant-37303386

^I agree with this. Varley’s mother may have been close to her adult DS, but she presumably wasn’t living with them. He would have had explanations that she will have believed.

My DM didn’t have any idea that my F was sexually abusing my DSis and me for years despite living in the same house.

This is the reason why professionals’ role in protecting children is so key, family members often don’t know what’s going on, or if they do they’re unwilling to act in an abused child’s interests and report what’s going on.

I remember reading about the moors murders and the aftermath experienced by her sister maureen and husband David, David was the one who actually brought them to justice by reporting them to the police after the final murder but they were absolutely shunned for the rest of their lives, spat at in the street, attacked by the mother of lesley ann downey and David said in his autobiography that he couldn't get work as whenever he started a job all the other workers would walk out.... so I know how hard it must be for those caught up in these crimes by association.

Yea, she would have been investigated and charged if there had been any basis for a charge.

I always feel really sorry for the relatives of people who commit heinous crimes... ian watkins parents for example, or lucy letby's - they are forever shunned for the crimes of their adult children. I'm sure if she had done anything criminally wrong the police would have found out during the investigation.

Something that has been bothering me is that apparently - and I've heard this many times on various news reports - is that on the day of Preston's death, both he and Varley had been at Varley's mother's house.

In fact, Varley's mother seems to be quite present in her adult son's life. My question is, should she be investigated or not?

Preston cannot have looked at all well on his final day even before the last incident that pushed him into cardiac arrest. She seems to have had quite a close relationship with her adult son, she lived locally to the couple and they communicated frequently.

I really can't decide on this one. On the one hand I can't condone some kind of witch hunt wherein anybody and everybody who ever saw Preston is blamed for being an accesory or similar but it has, as I said, bothered me.

It's complicated and whilst I'm not accusing her of anything other than not noticing Preston's poor state of health and at the very least, her son's lack of being able to care for him, I just wonder.

Maybe she genuinely thought everything was more or less OK. She loved her son and couldn't contemplate him doing anything bad.

I'm probably comparing apples and oranges here but Vikram Digwa's mother is on trial for hiding the knife that was used in the murder of Henry Novak. Strangely, I can kind of understand why she might have done that. Panic, fear, heat of the moment and so on. She still shouldn't have done it, of course and she might not have been panicking at all.

But could Varley's mother just not see what was going on, over four months? Possibly not, he was very manipulative. Maybe she did say, at the very least, "This is not working out."

I'm just thinking out loud here really. Or thinking by typing, more accurately - and I'm asking if anybody else has thought similarly to me.

It might boil down to the old question of, "Would you report your own family, your own child to the police or, in this case, Social Services?"

I suppose she has been thoroughly looked into and it's bad enough for her to have to live with what has happened and I've just written a load of rubbish. Just had to get it out really.

I wouldn't be surpirsed if there was something in their history, but I also wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't.

Varley, self-described 'drama queen', seems to be emotionally very immature. Self-centred and lacking the capacity for intelligent empathy. He probably thought looking after a baby was no more difficult than looking after a dog. He was incapable of understanding that the baby screamed and woke all the time because he had been wrenched from the only carer he knew and trusted. He was in a new environment - new smells, textures, voices. Totally overstimulated and distressing. His little nervous system was checking there was someone there to care for him every 45 minutes.

But there is another serious issue here. Chronic sleep deprivation can alter character unrecognisably. It is really dangerous. That's why it is used to torture people or to break them psychologically. Varley had it.

What shocks me more than anything is the time line that states they had a trial night with the baby in early April and then he was permanently with them by April 6th. How hard is it to recognise that a baby would benefit from a gradual transition, not a rapid one?

Did SS bear in mind that separation anxiety is most acute in babies between 6-10 months? So leaving his loving foster parents at that time would be a horrific experience, even if his adoptive parents had been loving saints.

It seems like a tiny baby was dumped at precisely the wrong time in his development, on two men with no experience of caring for babies, no understanding of the exhaustion and stress this entails. Absolutely traumatic for the baby and way too big a challenge for a self-absorbed man like Varley.

I totally agree @Gealach . Your words really resonate with me. 💐

In relation to the point about there being nothing in their backgrounds, I think that just tells us that they were never caught/convicted/investigated for anything; if they had been then they wouldn’t have been cleared to adopt and V would not have been working as a teacher (one hopes). However, this doesn’t mean there wasn’t something, it just means no one knew of it.

I am no expert, but offences like these that are so very extreme and violent and horrific do not emerge out of nowhere. A man with no prior interest in abusing children or history of offending doesn’t just suddenly commit these crimes; there will be past stuff there, whether child porn or other offences. They just didn’t get caught for it.

That beautiful child deserved so so much better and some days my heart breaks for humanity.

To be honest, this is absolutely ridiculous.

Implementing a comprehensive full body mapping process, following the sighting of any unexplained injury or fracture in a child between the ages of 0-5

So your 3 year old child falls at the park and fractures their arm, you think they should be stripped almost naked and photographed at every angle?

I understand where you are coming from but it's an absolute absurd overkill reaction which may not have even changed the outcome, the evidence of careless parenting was already present in this case (without invasive medical procedures), Preston should have been removed from the adoption process as soon as he presented with that elbow fracture, three separate injuries in 6 weeks, with newly approved adoptive parents.. it was all there in black and white that they weren't capable of keeping him safe, they should have paused the adoption and investigated thoroughly what led to all those injuries.

Parents, Fosterers and adoptive parents of babies/toddlers in the care system should not just be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to repeat injuries. That is where the real change needs to happen IMO.

This is one of those cases like Victoria Climbie, Jamie Bulger and Baby P that will be forever engraved on UK society and psyche as the most depraved act of cruelty and murder that will never be forgotten. In the case of the former 3 you could see it coming but there was absolutely nothing to suggest anything like this with these two. Middle class professionals, nice home, no history of any offending.

I think the ask needs to be much clearer.

Unexplained is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Prestons injuries were explained, it was just a lie. Im not sure what "sighting of unexplained injury" would include (or is it just fractures?)

If a 5 year old falls on play equipment, should they be stripped off for a full body map of injuries? If you go to a+e for a seizure and they witness a bruise should there be no discretion from Dr's and they'd be forced to do a body map.

Its easy to sign things like this in horror, but im not sure I'd want it to happen to my child

Signed. Thank you for sharing it. ❤️

I agree.
I don't want them dead. I want years and years and years of daily misery to rain down on them.

It is so heartbreaking.
His poor foster parents, his poor grandmother who wanted him and his mother who didn't want to give him up.

It is so upsetting.

Isn’t it shocking that this is true.

My understanding is they get caught when they film or talk about it using tech. Shudder to think how many pedos go under the radar by just not using tech at all to avoid detection.

Look at his little face, I mean how can people be SO evil? I hope those two evil fucking bastards will forever be looking over their shoulder and never ever find peace...