Can’t get over poor baby Preston

[Doximama2]

Not sure this is an AIBU, I never post on here but just feel I want to today. I am a 59 year old nana of 3 gourgous grandchildren including a one year old boy, the whole story in the need the last few weeks and especially this week about poor baby Preston that was tortured, abused and ultimately murdered by his 2 adoptive “fathers” has completely traumatized me. I am recovering from a big surgery 2 weeks ago so feeling emotional but this has really upset me so much that this was able to happen and that no one, not any social services, medics on visits to the hospital - one even with a broken elbow ffs - friends and family of these monsters realised what was happening and that Preston wasn’t a happy one year old. My grandson is always happy and smiling unless he is poorly so how did this go unnoticed? I had to turn the news off Monday when they showed this poor baby trying to sleep and this monster kept making him wake up.

im not naive, I have worked in public service including health and social services which I think is why I can’t comprehend how this was allowed to happen. It just feels like there is so many awful things in the world, and has made me so sad. 😭

Scapegoats?? What a fucking insult.

I actually think there are two issues at play here.

The sexual abuse would be incredibly, incredibly hard to identify in a child that can not communicate, I'm not sure on the odds of it even happening in the first place, but if not for the fact they killed him, the post mortem and the evidence on their phones, it may never have been identified, there doesn't seem to be anything that pointed to sexual abuse at all.

The INJURIES he sustained while in their care, however, were documented assessed, and reported to social services.. he was taken to hospital 3 times in 6 weeks, twice with obvious bruising to his head/face, and one with a fractured elbow, which was caused by the adoptive parent.

The people to blame are the monsters that tortured and killed him, but I do think the post adoption process should be as rigorous as the pre-adoption process, if it transpires that the adoptive parents cannot stop the child coming to harm (as in this case), then there should be systems in place to pause that adoption while it is thoroughly investigated..

There should be no place for continued "benefit of the doubt" when dealing with the most vulnerable children in our society coming to harm, that fractured elbow should have been the end of the road on their adoption journey.

I haven't commented because I don't have any information about the foster mother, unless you want to link it. It isn't unusual for foster carers to be apprehensive (naturally they will be very protective over a child they've cared for and will have a view about how they introductions have gone) but I don't know what her concerns were.

If cruising & toddling children had to be removed every time they had a bruise on the head then we'd have to remove pretty much every child between the age of 9 months 4 years and there'd be no one to place them with because we'd have to remove them from all the foster carers too.

Seriously, the medical assessments for Preston absolutely do need to be scrutinised but I'm starting to wonder if you've ever met a toddler. If you've had children in nursery in the last twenty years you must know how often they have to fill out a report for a child they've seen with a mark that they or the parent aren't worried about.

Absolutely what I was thinking. We are allowed to be outraged. We are allowed to question why red flags were ignored. This isn’t a thread for picking on others. That baby’s death needs to be discussed and not swept under the carpet with “lessons will be learned”. (I have a year old grandson who is loved beyond measure). This case needs to be highlighted and spoken about and people need to be very angry as well as beyond baffled as to how such a catalogue of incompetence (because it IS incompetence) didn’t lead to the baby being removed from two people who SURELY must have come under some sort of suspicion. JV behaved and dressed (in the video from the hospital car park and inside the hospital) like a giant fucking toddler. Ok, it was all too late by then but it can’t have been the first time he presented as an overgrown, immature, self-centred, deeply idiotic wanker.

It's not a bruise to the head though is it, it's two lots of bruising to the head/face, and a broken elbow, all in the home, all while under the full supervision of the adoptive parent.

It's the full picture that is crucial here, no one is saying he should have been removed for a bruise, I'm not sure why you keep going back to that, we're talking about 3 different injuries in 6 weeks as NEW adoptive parents with no previous experience with parenting, one of which is a severe injury.

How many children have you known where their parent has broken their arm?

"Mrs Cooper said she had difficulty getting access to see Preston and made a complaint to a social worker."

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2026-04-22/foster-mother-of-baby-felt-something-was-wrong-murder-trial-hears

The first two a+e visits were for physical health where he was diagnosed and given antibiotics not for injuries

The Dr's weren't concerned about the fracture, until he later spoke to the fracture clinic and gave a different account.

He was seen by a social worker on the ward, had multiple visits at home including from an independent social worker. They followed up with the hospital each time. They were able to show a video that accounted for the injury

Some of the medical experts questioned said the bruises weren't conclusively suspicious

Obviously in hindsight we can scream about it but i cant say thst if i was a social worker based on the info presented at the time that id be able to remove a child based on that

A quick Google would tell you that elbow fractures are relatively common in children and as has been said already, Varley gave an account as to how it happened that was deemed plausible. An elbow fracture doesn't require a lot of force for a young child.

It also wouldn't be at all unusual for foster carers and adoptive parents to have different views about the level of contact with children. In fact the advice has often been for foster carers not to visit children when they are first adopted, as its felt it would be too difficult/confusing for the child to see them but not go home with them, and to affect the likelihood of the child attaching to the new parents. That advice has softened a little - in the past, CAMHS used to advise that adoptive parents barely saw anyone at all and definitely not previous care givers - but it's still pretty normal that foster carers who want to keep in touch would agree not to visit until both they & the child are felt to be ready for it, once they are confidently settled with the adoptive parents. Many foster carers volunteer that they'll step back for 3-6 months, so an adoptive parent wanting that wouldn't be unusual especially for a very young child.

What does Nick Ferrari’s long career in radio journalism have to do with anything? This is a vile and terrible case but I struggle to think of any case where a baby has been tortured to death that looked like a walk in the park. Being starved or poisoned or beaten by caregivers, held down by one parent while the other inflicts injuries, having almost every bone in the body injured, cigarettes put out on arms, handed around adults in the household to inflict physical and sexual abuse. All of these are cases in the last 10-15 years, but Nick Ferrari doesn’t remember any of them so that ‘says something’. JFC.

It’s a common injury in mobile children, but rarer in non-mobile children. It’s also not a common accidental injury caused by putting a baby in a cot (according to Google).

SW should be guided by medics in the first instance obviously but I think there may be some learning from not investigating further based purely on that injury in a child his age. It’s at least possible (and more likely probable) that imaging might have shown some injuries that were plainly not accidental.

Instead of asking ‘how did this happen’ and accepting what seems reasonable, maybe we need to move to a far higher bar and any child in care brought in with a fracture should have a full examination, imaging and SW investigation. That’s a lot of investment, but nothing will improve without investment.

@Allisnotlost1 I agree about non mobile children, but Preston was mobile or at least pulling to stand and cruising at that point. One of the explanations given was that Preston fell and he panicked and grabbed his arm and he twisted as he fell. One was that he wriggled out his hands as placing him in his cot and Preston's arm was caught underneath him. As I said, Varley was clever enough to give plausible reasons, and it wasn't known until later he'd given two different accounts. The visits were followed up by social workers, the child was seen as part of that, but there will be questions as to whether they had enough professional curiosity in their follow up.

The medical examinations, imaging etc are tricky. Ethically, and in line with their guidance, medics can only put a child through a physical examination and through testing if there's grounds to do so, because they're invasive for the child. When you consider that children in care often have been physically or sexually abused its even more pertinent to consider the impact of examinations and tests. There are often debates between medics and social workers where social workers want a child protection medical and the medics don't agree it's proportionate, or they'll do a consultation but not a skeletal survey or further testing as they don't agree there's grounds. I don't think there's an easy answer to that.

@Runningswanker @Allisnotlost1

I think there needs to be an ongoing national conversation of what level of intrusiveness people will accept. Ignoring all the practicalities of actually having the resource to do it...

If you take your child to a+e for a chest infection, what level of checks are allowed? Do we all consent (to prevent cases like this) that each a+e visit should include a child being stripped to check for bruising? If so how intrusive is that check allowed to be (another poster suggested intimate checks for sexual abuse). Preston initially presented for documented infections rather than injuries. Intimate checks etc can be traumatic, and obviously involve children being undressed far more frequently in front of unknown adults

When a child has a fracture in a way that seem plausible, should they be given a full body xray? With the extra radiation risks that go with it. Is it an mri? Ultrasound?

Whatever the suggestion they should be something that most parents would be prepared for their own children to do, and it not just be something that is decided for adopted children

I dont have the answer but suspect that a lot of people are suggesting things that they wouldnt consent to for their child

I don’t disagree with anything you say. I think what I’m suggesting is a hard guideline that takes the decision out of the hands of the medics/social workers and makes it an obligation to investigate. That way there is a consistent approach, more data on which to make decisions, and ultimately more data overall on accidental/non-accidental injuries that can inform wider cases too. That means no individual has to consider the ethics of invasive examination, because we’ve decided that is always warranted to detect and prevent future harm. No more debates, which will always be influenced by social factors as well as scientific ones.

Right now, as I understand it, a convincing carer can get the child out of further examination with a plausible explanation that they can lift off chatGPT.

I don’t see any other way than mandatory further examination on presentation of specified either/or injuries. It’s not reasonable to expect either medics or social workers to always know. I don’t have the timeline in mind but I wonder how many of Preston’s injuries identified at PM (or similar ones) would have been visible had there been a skeletal survey and/or abdominal ultrasound or similar when he presented with the fracture.

@Badum going back to what a parent would feel acceptable for their own child is really pertinent. I'm used to (some) children in care having poor boundaries by virtue of being in the system - eg on first meeting, offering to show me their bedroom, telling me all about themselves, their family etc, just because I'm a social worker. The idea of vulnerable children being conditioned to accept having to strip off doesn't bear thinking about. I once supported a child for an intimate medical examination at a SARC which turned out to be unnecessary - parent had alleged sexual abuse from a third party but it turned out to be baseless, the parent had undiagnosed mental health issues that were causing her to believe that. Honestly, that haunted me for a long time - however sensitively they're done they especially are very intrusive.

I completely agree it should apply to all parents. From a resource point of view it might need to focus on all parents with any type of CS involvement, but maybe a focus on specific injuries that are known to be both accidental or non-accidental could narrow sufficiently.

I was curious if there were any features of, eg, an accidental vs non-accidental elbow fracture that could help make a decision. I wonder if AI could help here by reviewing lots of images and the ultimate finding of A/NA and then providing a framework. Maybe that even exists.

ETA I take your point about subjecting children in care to different standards, but I think narrowing a focus on particular presentations could help with that. About 30% of elbow fractures are found to be non-accidental, for example, but that’s obviously not including the ones that were missed (like Preston’s). Is invasive practice justified for children at high risk? It’s a fine line but I think generally yes.

@Allisnotlost1 there already is a duty to investigate, but if you mean a hard requirement to do medical exams on children in care that wouldn't be done for other children, the biggest cost is to the wellbeing of the children, psychologically and physically. It's arguably a different form of abuse, even if it's well intended.

Yes, and as such many will have had at least one protected charcteristic

Not having been there I couldn't say if it applies in this case, but anyone who's experienced "the shutters coming down" when such characteristics are involved may naturally wonder what effect, if any, it had on the rigour of assessments

And while Runningswanker and others are quite right to remind us that damning an entire profession helps nobody, neither does turning a blind eye to the kind of influences mentioned

There’s a lot to consider, but I’m not sure I’d immediately agree that medical examination is a different form of abuse.

From what I can see there isn’t enough data, but if you know that, say, 50% of non-verbal children under age X presenting with ABC injury, have been injured by a carer, it’s plainly not abusive to investigate for other injuries. I’m not at all suggesting that every cough, rash or graze should result in every form of test, but more that, where a serious injury is often caused non-accidentally, there is a clear(er?) guideline on further medical examination as standard. You said yourself there is debate and that has medics who often refuse. Why not make that much smoother for the social workers who ultimately have to make the call on CP?

Asking a child to strip off and to be prodded and poked and asked questions about their body when it's not medically necessary, just because they're in care, would be harmful to children.
Children in care need to be supported to have better boundaries, not given the message that their body belongs to someone else as long as that person is wearing a uniform. Sorry but we have to disagree on this one. The paediatricians who do CP medicals are great with the kids but they are uncomfortable for everyone, especially the more invasive types.

When a child has an injury the medics will take a cursory look to see if there is anything else, and that feeds into their decision as to whether its accidental or something that requires further investigation. But there's a big difference between that and body mapping or X rays and blood tests, or intimate examinations.

Nobody should be asked to strip off, that’s a massive breach of basic dignity and any medical doing that should be reported.

And I think I’ve been very clear that no child should be subjected to medical examination ‘just because they’re in care’.

If you’re determined to misquote I don’t think there’s any point continuing.

ETA A cursory look? No wonder things are as they are, Jesus.

When I think back over cases like this where red flags weren’t picked up, usually it’s really clear that there was failings in care - missed appointments, things not being passed on. But in this case it really seems that Varely was highly manipulative and covered up his actions in a way that it was very hard for anyone to see what was really going on.

Also, we’ll need to wait for the report, but him being a teacher I think made a huge difference to how professionals perceived the situation.

I don't follow what you mean then @Allisnotlost1 how do you propose they do a full medical exam without examining the child?

Also you refer to fractures that are usually caused non accidentally, but that isn't the case for an elbow fracture. If it were an injury that would usually be non accidental, it would lead to a CP medical, usually without debate. Eg the same fracture in a non mobile baby. Or certain types of injury such as a bruise to the ear (which is almost impossible to do accidentally)

I mentioned stripping off.

I meant in this case, it Preston had been stripped more bruising would have likely to have been found. It's been a common theme in the suggestions across the threads that babies should be thoroughly checked for bruising, including some comments suggestions about checking for physical signs of sexual abuse.

This is likely to be one of the cases where this would have made a difference but for lots of valid reasons isnt common practice

I think its something that's understandable to suggest but also up for debate.

I don't know what id be willing to tolerate for my children to protect others

I agree with @Runningswanker points about how often adopted children or children in care have a level of intrusive assessment that becomes the norm

I don’t think I’d be keen on my child being checked for bruising all over their body, because they came in with an accidental injury. I mean a baby won’t be conscious of it but for an older child, this would be distressing.

My toddler went in with an accidental injury and it was flagged to social services (which is automatic). They did not contact me as I assume it wasn’t red flagged or something. I was also questioned by the medical team, not once but several times about what exactly happened. So there is a procedure in place.

That procedure feels appropriate and necessary but if they had started stripping him off and checking him everywhere as a standard procedure, it would feel intrusive for the child. You certainly couldn’t check every child for sexually abuse. It would be so distressing.

How would they know the injury was accidental without further checks?