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 want to know who the 5% are who think the OP is not being reasonable in her headline !!

I hope to god they get the Huntley/Watkins treatment in prison.

@Empress13 Someone said she was sick of the virtue signalling about this case. I don't understand how it's virtue signalling, that a bunch of people on a forum, many mothers/grandmothers, and some fathers/grandfathers, and the rest just sane kind people, are absolutely shocked, saddened and horrified by what happened to this baby.

I haven't been sleeping because I keep thinking about it all. My friend thinks I'm being ridiculous and I should be thinking about DS and what I can do for him to make his life better. Well I do (stay single, because the stats around child abuse when there's a mum's boyfriend around are shocking,) and I'm fine during the day because I'm busy looking after him, but at night DS is asleep and I can't get it out of my head. My usual methods of watching funny videos on YouTube, doing jigsaw puzzles and listening to music before bedtime aren't helping at the moment, so I stay awake, because every time I close my eyes it pops into my head. Methinks I should be allowed to torture that hideous pair to death because they're causing me to be sleep deprived! And I'm absolutely making sure to be as patient and kind to DS as I should be. Shows how JV's defence that it was sleep deprivation that caused him to murder that child is bollocks, because I'm making an active choice to be calm even though I know how hard I have to fight against being bad tempered and snappy when I'm tired. I've lost my temper and shouted at DS in the past when he's been doing things I've found annoying, and that was bad enough.

I suppose we have different ways of dealing with things. Mine is to talk about it, but I don't have anyone in real life to talk to, so it's stuck in my head. I've just typed a load of nonsense here. My friend said there's nothing I can do, and I know that! That's what makes it so hard.

One of their neighbours said about Preston that she'd never heard a baby cry so much and she wondered what was happening, and now we know. I think if anyone ever has even a moment of wondering about a child, we should report it.

@SapphireSeptember I completely agree with your comment about when children do seem so drastically unhappy we should report it. If it makes a minority of parents offended but saves the life of one child then it is worth it. I hope everyone does this.

Sorry you're going through what you're going through. I had similar after the Baby P case. I can remember where I was and what I was doing when that case was reported on the radio. It takes a long time to deal with the horror and sadness. Look after yourself.

I asked my Italian DH today, are there cases like this in Italy and he said, there are child killings usually in domestic abuse cases but nothing like the level of sadism or depravity as this case, Sarah Sharif, Baby P and others.

It looks like they bamboozled everyone with the nice home, good jobs and probably smooth way of dealing with professionals.
I can't say it would have been easy to spot this.

At the risk of sharing more distressing things that's not particularly true

Off the top of my head there was a mother in court this year for murdering 2 new borns, there's been massive media about abuse within the church fairly recently and there was a big court case some years ago about a ring of people abusing children in order to get them removed from their parents to get them fostered out

Im not sure its a British thing

Honestly, I'm sure social services or the police would rather be called out and find out a baby had colic or reflux than miss something terrible. I wonder how that woman feels after what happened to baby Preston was revealed.

Thank you. I keep crying about it. I think I find it harder to deal with now I've got DS. I always found things like this sad and horrible, but I couldn't relate to it in the same way. I remember the Baby P case as well. 💔 That poor little boy was failed too.

There's another one in the news today. Woman and her boyfriend killed her 2 year old daughter. It's all the time sadly.
It should be made much harder for men to be allowed to move into the home of a child. Where is the child's protection and rights.

Stop reading about it all then. It's not compulsory to read it all you know it's going to be horrible.
You aren't doing yourself any favours

If they heard all that crying they should have reported it.

I thought the same. Maybe it would have made the difference 😐 who knows. Bet they feel awful about it.

Sadly, I can say that in France the news is full of stories about child abuse. After school clubs, children's homes, Affaire Lyhanna, (google that with caution) the list goes on and on.

Then there's drugging your wife to prostitute her, Patrick Bruel - the latest in a long line of pervert celebrities.

For anybody who still has a crush on Alain Delon, I advise you to look into what he got up to. Let's just say that it involves orgies with George Pompidou and his wife, the killing of a bodyguard called Stefan Marcovic and dumping his body in the déchetterie or public tip, blackmail, the Corsican mafia, animal cruelty and being an all round depraved and nasty piece of work.

Then Belgium has Marc Dutroux.

Basically nowhere's safe.

I have stopped, doesn't stop me thinking about it though. I sometimes wish I could just switch my brain off.

There's so much I don't understand here, but how is this - they had been negotiating moving house ahead of Preston's death, and carried on, completing the purchase just three weeks later.
Surely their previous house was a crime scene - forensics must have moved in very soon after Preston died as they had recovered forensic information from Preston's cot (not saying it, but we all know what). Then they just sold the house and moved and carried on living as if nothing had happened ?
Presumably JMF carried on working, and paying the mortgage, I suppose as someone working in finance there was no need to inform his employers of any police investigation related to Preston? What about Varley? Surely he must have had to inform the school where he worked and cannot have carried on working? Was he suspended on full pay or something? I just can't wrap my head around how they just carried on living their best lives as if nothing had happened 🤷‍♀️

Were they still living there, freely whilst on bail after being charged right up to the trial?

www.dailymail.com/crime-desk/article-15906911/Teacher-murdered-little-Preston-Davey-adopting-boyfriend-moved-suburban-450-000-newbuild-attempt-reinvent-themselves.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=social-twitter_mailonline&ns_campaign=1490

I couldn't sleep last night thinking about this poor baby. Humanity is disgusting sometimes. I can't imagine the pain Preston went through. It's horrific.
I can't understand why flags weren't raised when they he went to hospital multiple times. Do medical professionals need more training around this? They are crucial to saving children and babies from abuse. He was so vulnerable, he could have been saved.
I hope these two get the huntley treatment in prison. They deserve to rot.

Didn't know about Alain Delon.

I've actually never heard of an Independent Visitor before, what a great thing to do. I think I will try and register as one, thank you for putting that post out there.

Ah that's lovely to hear @TheJuryIsOut it's such a valuable role, especially for young people who don't have much family, for whatever reason.
I know not everyone can give time for volunteering but for those that can't, even just giving the message to your local MPs and councillors that you want them to support young people in care genuinely makes a big difference when it comes to decisions about resources and support.

@FannyCann No they were remanded once they were officially charged. But they weren’t officially charged until June 2025.

Before that they were under investigation. So you aren’t completely free - they couldn’t go abroad or anything. But you can’t hold someone in prison for years without an official charge.

JV could not work during that time because of his status of being under investigation. So he would have been suspended with full pay while the investigation was happening.

It’s likely a difference in reporting laws or something. I thought this about Ireland , it feels like we don’t have as as many cases like that here, but when I looked into it the child homocide and abuse rates are similar. (And low on a global scale)

Ireland just has tiny population in comparison. Also the reporting laws are very different. So we hear nothing of the level of detail in these cases. In Sarah Sharif’s case for example, because there were other children connected to the case, the details of the case would all be anonymous. The law is focused on their privacy. So the words may horrify everyone but it quickly drops from the media as there is no personal detail to report.

and finally, Irish courts don’t release court evidence in the same way as the UK. So in this case, the videos might be described by the court reporter but not shown to the public.

It could be similar in Italy.

Italy are extremely strict on child protection and what can be shown. I was once watching a documentary about an Irish child who went to an Italian hospital for some specialist treatment and they weren't even allowed to film her at all in Italy even though the parents gave full permission.

I read that Varley was suspended on full pay until he was charged. That's two years' salary.

I read something about this recently and I found it interesting. I wonder to what extent the graphic reporting of horrible crimes is almost a contagion. Unthinkable things become imaginable to those who are susceptible. And what does it do to those who did love the child, and to the rest of us? I don’t t see that it brings any benefit to report so graphically, maybe it should have more rules around that in England.

Wow, that’s quite surprising. I’d have thought teaching contracts would have quite stringent clauses on being under investigation for crimes against children. I’ve seen pushed to resign from less regulated roles for less serious crimes, with a couple of months salary, and people sacked for the reputational harm of being investigated.