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. 😭

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

^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.

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

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

This story has shocked me to the core.

Sleep deprivation and the circumstances of the adoption are no excuse for child abuse, absolutely not. They are vile rotten monsters and I hope they are tortured in prison.

However, I can't believe it was considered ok to give a 9 month old baby to adoptive parents in these circumstances. Two men with no experience of babies, during peak separation anxiety, a child who already struggled to sleep, men who have no bond with the child, no love for the child, thrown in at the deep end. This was extremely high risk for not going well.
There was no urgent need to rush this adoption through at this tender age, and especially not to two men.
He had a strong bond with his foster parents and also a relationship with his birth mother, and he was torn from both at the worst possible age and also totally pre-verbal so he couldn't communicate his needs or what was being done to him.
The social workers acted against the child's best interests, and then totally failed to monitor him afterwards. He was horrifically let down and they should be held accountable.
I can't stop thinking about that poor baby.

You are absolutely right. I have been thinking more about it, and sleep deprivation has way less to do with the case than I thought. As PP have said - it doesn't make you want to rape and systematically bully and brutalise a baby. It might reduce impulse control but only a monster would have those impulses in the first place.

You are right and I was wrong. What I was thinking but didn't say clearly in that post, was that if he was telling people how increasingly angry he felt towards Preston, severe sleep deprivation would break down that barrier between thinking violent thoughts and acting on them, and I wish people had realised that and intervened. People who would have realised that sleep deprivation brings out the worst in people and reduces their patience: social workers, friends with children. But now I think he had no barrier in the first place.

I'm not an apologist for him. He can rot. Severe sleep deprivation causes loss of impulse control. But no normal human has impulses like that. He was always a monster hiding in plain sight.

I'm sorry my badly thought-out post upset you. The only people I have sympathy for in this are Preston and those who loved and cared for him.

Just want to make it absolutely clear, as my post upset a lot of people, I am not an apologist for them at all. I think they are evil scum. I was trying to get my head around how this could ever happen. There is a difference between looking for an explanation and looking for an excuse. They are not the same thing.

This case upset me so badly, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and part of that was trying to understand why it happened. One thing I wondered about was whether sleep deprivation meant he lost control more easily. A factor, NOT an excuse. But I was wrong. It's not relevant at all.

I understood what you meant

Not linked to this case

The first stages of placement are really hard. It was a time of immense joy but also immense struggle for me. I absolutely can see why people end up with post adoption mental health issues.
Similar to post natal but with added pressures

We had spent so long fighting to get to that point, telling people we would definitely cope across various panels its hard to admit when you arent the natural parent you've dreamed of for years. All of the sleep deprivation of post natal, and anxiety and self doubt pf a new parent but with added people coming to assess you constantly. The little person that arrived in our case was distraught at being taken from foster care, and had a big list of thoughts and preferences that we didnt know yet. They were also really active and seemed to be constantly hurting themselves which is hard for any new parent

I remember once having a wobble in front of my friend who I thought would tell me I was stupid for attempting it. She told me when she had her newborn that she hid from the health visitor, and said "at least mine stayed in the cot while I was figuring it out"

When i adopted you were also encouraged not to have visitors, and when you did later on that they shouldn't do any stuff with the kid

Obviously its no excuse for this case, but it's a hazy time where support needs to be better