To think the BBC just mispresented baby Preston's killer (and in way that was favourable to the killer) ?

[lyarlyarpantsonfire]

Really odd reporting on Baby Preston's killer just now on the one o'clock news. Despite the baby being sexually abused and indecent images of him taken and shared, the BBC presented him as a Dad who had found parenting really overwhelming and hard and had come to resent his baby.

Stressed out parents who can't cope with babies don't sexually abuse them because they are stressed. Or take indecent images of them because they are stressed.

The killer was a paedophile. That is why he abused that baby.

As his interest in having a child was to abuse it, not to care for it, it may also have been that he had no the tolerance for hard work of looking after a young child and that did overwhelm him which resulted in him physically assaulting the child.

It was such a bizarre narrative to present him as a man who had desperately wanted children but found parenting too hard and could not cope.

Instead of a paedophile.

Yes, this is an important point. If you look at whole life sentences they can only be given in exceptional circumstances and the whole legality of not having a defined term for applying for parol (however long that might be) was challenged in the European Court of Human Rights along with the powers of the Home Secretary in the process of reviewing life sentences.
Exceptional circumstances have to consider everything that might have affected the facts of the case.
It's likely the judge was making it very clear they had considered absolutely everything before imposing the whole life. It didn't stop the most punitive penalty available in law being applied, so had no material impact on the sentence, thankfully. And it was never said it was a reason or an excuse, which if course it isn't. It was just stated that they were finding parenting overwhelming. It didn't mitigate the sentence.

Why not-they often do and if that doesn't work, they make up remarks-remarks that they then have to apologise for.

With a bit of luck.

Maybe it will help those in authority to realise that it doesn’t matter if you’re a safeguarding lead at a school and a head of year, you can still be a paedophile / sadist / abuser / murderer.

ITV are also reporting below, similar to BBC. Why only target the BBC?

Varley took a year off work as head of year and as a design and technology teacher at a local high school, South Shore Academy, to look after the child, but struggled as a new parent with a baby who frequently woke during the night and with his partner working long hours, the court heard.

@honeyhoneyI had the misfortune to read some of the details about the baby's injuries and evidence. It was not physical abuse caused by stress. It was sustained and completely sexual over several weeks. They are paedophiles.

I don't think anyone knows what the motive for adopting was. Only they will know that. As they won't admit guilt they are hardly going to say.
All we know is what they did once Preston was placed with them.
Awful vile people, how do people sink so low. RIP Preston failed by everyone apart from your foster parents.

He got a whole life sentence, not sure the judge could have gone any harder 🤔

@lyarlyarpantsonfire

If the coverage you were talking about was the Radio 4 World at One programme, then having listened to it, you are being very unreasonable to say that the BBC is misrepresenting the killer. Through the top of the hour headline and summary, then the main piece, the reporting puts the sexual abuse element of the story front and centre.

There is a live report in the middle from a reporter standing outside the court where he has just got out of the court and he's reading from his notes summarising the judges remarks where he mentions that the judge commented on the line about parenting being overwhelming but the reporter makes it quite clear that's not an excuse. And then he goes on to say that the public won't hear about the details of the abuse in print or on radio or TV because it's too graphic to repeat. The reporter then says "this is a case of utmost depravity"

So I'm not really hearing what you heard in this report. Unless this isn't the radio programme you were talking about?

The piece in question starts at 6.53 if anyone is interested in hearing for themselves.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xp69

So he should be given a whole life sentence, and so should the other one They were in in together. He could have stopped it at any time.

Same as you can still be a policeman like Wayne Couzens.

Classic BBC reporting .... Always on the wrong side !

Except if you listen to the piece the OP has misinterpreted or misheard the report because they don't do what she says.

I think that it’s the BBC and the judge who are being misinterpreted here.

The judge didn’t have to give a whole life sentence - he could have given Varley the same Sara sharif’s father (poor girl) - life with minimum 40 years. But he went for the whole life sentence because of the utter severity and repugnance of the crime.

As a pp has said much more eloquently than me, the judge has to be seen to be considering all evidence. He acknowledged that Varley began to resent poor Preston. That of course is not an excuse at all (one iota) and the judge made that point.

It’s not necessary to intend someone’s death to be guilty of murder. Intending serious harm is enough. In this case it’s highly likely that the combination of sadistic and sexual conduct is what led the judge to the whole life order.

I wondered the same thing. I can just about see that one person could be depraved enough to abuse a baby - simply because I know it happens. I cannot see how your partner could come home from work and say “how was the baby today”, and the other parent could admit they raped him, and suggest the other parent does too. And instead of phoning the police, the partner just joins in. And this then happens repeatedly until the baby dies. It is honestly just completely beyond my comprehension.

I will get flamed for this but I feel there is something really grim about the way so many posters have flocked to the myriad of threads to pick apart every element of this case.

I think because it is so horrific, and the photos show such a sweet little baby. There was similar coverage of Sara Sharif, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Star Hobson, right back to Victoria Climbie.

I agree there are some posters who are obsessed with the idea that all gay men are nonces and shouldn’t be around children, but I don’t think that is the majority view. And I haven’t really seen that on this thread.

I know I think it’s weird and disturbing.

I just find it odd that people who apparently can’t cope with the details but will stay on a thread for hours discussing them.

I get tired of the ‘give me 5 minutes with them alone’ comments but I think overall people are trying to get their heads around what happened.

Maybe it’s me but if I come across something so horrific I can’t deal with it, I don’t spend hours discussing every detail. It feels ghoulish and disrespectful to a child that died

I totally agree. Some posters on some of these threads are even trawling over abuse cases, posting links, picking apart cases and surmising details it’s deeply disturbing. I don’t know anybody in real life who does this.

Nor do I luckily. It’s almost like people are way too invested in the drama of the situation

It’s not just the drama but the horrific details
they’re interested in. It’s disturbing.