Baby Preston Davey - Content warning concerns CSA (added by MNHQ)

[Sadmamma35]

I’ve just read about baby Preston Davey and I cannot stop thinking about him. I have a 13-month-old of my own, which is probably why this has hit me so hard — I can really relate and my baby is my everything.
I’m crying as I write this. Why does it hurt so much for a baby I’ve never even met? Has anyone else felt this way?
How do you cope with the negative thoughts that follow when you read something like this? 💙

The Jeffrey Donaldson trial doesn't seem to be getting that much coverage either though admittedly I semi avoid the news because it is so permanently unbearable now.

I also semi avoid the news and only read the Times . They have had one small paragraph at the start of the trial.

Edited to add: I first heard about it on Mumsnet

Well that’s the main part of the trial over. It’s adjourned to Monday when I imagine closing speeches will start, followed by the judge’s directions to the jury.

I am so heartbroken for baby Preston and can’t stop thinking about him. I want to reach back in time and save him. How his poor foster mother is coping I do not know. Even if these monsters are given the maximum sentence it won’t help Preston. The fear and distress that poor baby suffered is unbearable.

I have a visceral reaction when they say ‘my son’ or ‘our son’. They are not fathers and he is not their son.

I agree with other posters that M/M adoptions should be treated with caution, but probably won’t be due to being politically correct.

I’ve seen TikTok’s with baby Preston’s birth mother. He had such a sad, tragic little life. Poor baby.

Those men are disgusting and depraved. How did they get through the rigorous adoption process? It’s not an easy path, adopting a child. But somehow these men were deemed to be suitable parents.

They probably didn't tell the social worker they were paedophiles.
Professionals, worked with children, clean DBS, loving families, no financial issues etc etc. What else could the screening process look at?

I hadn’t heard of that case before and just read about it on the BBC. Is it common for family Courts to tell parents that they are losing their child over a video link?

Their computers perhaps.

I've only just seen this thread, I saw a couple of the BBC reports, it's very awful.

Professionals, worked with children, clean DBS, loving families, no financial issues etc etc. What else could the screening process look at?

I know, it's hard. I guess these things are all 'positives' on paper but to me some of these are just baseline, like the dbs, just the lowest hurdle. I don't think being a professional makes someone a better parent either. I suppose I imagined a longer process of observing candidates in the round, interacting with them so they can't just present the side they want you to see - I think background checks should involve your digital profile too. These men weren't together all that long either - three years or so? Not married / civil partnership. I still can't get my head around them being given a one-year-old.

No they weren't Preston's 'dads' and he wasn't their 'son', creeps.

I'd love to know what a body language expert thinks of Varley in his police interviews

I also wonder why the social workers were ok with them calling him Elijah. Unless a name is really identifiable and the birth family pose a high risk, the birth names should be kept as that is his identity. That will have been made clear during the assessment/ training. Adoptive parents can still change the name officially when the adoption order goes through (against advice), but that hadn’t happened for Preston.

No I don’t think it’s common. Video links would be used if a parent was in prison, or during Covid I imagine.

I think irrespective of the awful issues in this case, there is a natural tendency for parents to want to name their own child.

Regardless of what I think about adoption and the process in the UK, I imagine that most people will go through it because they want to be parents, and I’m not actually sure I agree with the perceived wisdom that in giving the child a different name you are removing their identity. The whole point of adoption is that they are having a new identity. It’s incredibly silly (in my view anyway) to then insist they retain a part of that old identity (the name) in a family which demands no links to the old birth parents for the duration of the childhood.

And it can also mean a natural isolation within either the adoptive family or wider community. This isn’t true in every case obviously but if you have children called Muhammad, Aisha and Elizabeth one clearly doesn’t ‘fit’ into the culture, it isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with any of those names, it’s just one is the odd one out if you like.

I wouldn’t personally choose Preston (or Elijah for that matter) and if you’re going to be that child’s mother I can see why you’d want to choose a name you like, or that means something to you, or both.

I think it depends on the age of the child. If they know their name because they are a good age then to change it would obviously be problematic and potentially upsetting for the child but if you adopt a baby then changing the name can feel like a clean slate. I adopted a baby and changed their name. They are now an adult and very happy with their name 😊
To insist on keeping their old name as you say, is a bit ridiculous. They are starting fresh with a new family and often the name the birth family have given is very telling and often very linked to them.

Oh absolutely. I would never advocate it for a child over even the age of about two. But certainly for a baby I would say that wanting to name them yourself is understandable.

None of that detracts from the awfulness of this case, of course.

Given who the birth mother is I imagine social care were not opposed to the adoptive family creating some distance.

I’ve followed the live updates on this case more than I have any case before for some reason and am interested to see which way the jury goes. Obviously a lot of what has happened in court has not been reportable. There are a lot of charges and I’m not certain of a guilty verdict on them all, especially for JMF.

I was surprised the adoptive parents were matched so quickly with a young child, as if they were almost guaranteed a baby. I thought there were very few babies available?

I’ve just seen a small part of it where Varley is obviously lying about how he found him in the bath. Complete with crocodile tears and a quick look at the officers to see if his performance is working.

I can’t imagine how he thinks his lies will work. He claims he was in the bath but was dry and had a nappy on.

Babies know their name well before a year though. I can understand that parents want to choose a name for their child, but adoption should be child centred. It’s about finding the right home for a child, not about making the prospective adopters parents and allowing the experiences such as choosing names. A child’s name is part of their identity and one of the only constants in their life when they’ve had such upheaval as Preston had. Unless there are massive problems with the name (such as it being identifiable or offensive) then the child should be allowed to keep it. It didn’t matter whether JV or JMF preferred Elijah to Preston, Preston was his name and at nine months old he would have known his name well. Just because babies can’t talk about things, it doesn’t mean they don’t understand.

2 men shouldn't be allowed to adopt. I'm sorry if that is controversial or seen as some kind of 'phobic' but when 98 to 99% of sexual crime is committed by men, allowing it is crazy to me. How many kids have been abused by men in their homes and its the presence of a female and her finding out that ends it?

So much violent/ sexual /coercive / mental torture happens at the hands of men in homes and sadists attract each other. Perverts attract each other.

They do check your online presence. There is a long process of lengthy interviews, training days etc. Ive said before on the thread that we went through it and it's incredibly intrusive. Its also really common that you have to do extra volunteer work with children even if you a regularly interacting via work etc. Unless you've gone through it, it's hard to explain just how intrusive it is

You could ask people to hand over devices but without police style forensic programmes, most digital foot prints are easy to erase. A cursory look at a phone wouldnt give you much.

There is always a weigh up of what is reasonable to ask of adopters. Keeping children in foster care, and leaving children with birth parents/ having no spaces in the system is risky too. The current system is often criticised for being overly harsh by the people trying to navigate it

Apologies if this is a bit of an info overload, but I don't think it's clear what route they took from what I read

Some of it is just luck and logistics of who is where in the system. Traditionally there is very few young babies, because often a birth parent has to noticeably fail, be tried with support, and has multiple opportunities to appeal etc before a child has the right paper work to be placed for adoption which all takes time. If I remember correctly in this case, the birth mum had repeated kids taken away so it may be that some of that was done while he was in utero but I think he was about a year old when he was placed which is a fairly normal entry point.

Lots of the youngest children in the system are under foster to adopt, basically where they strongly suspect that the child will be placed for adoption but the process isnt complete. This means you aren't an adopter to start with but a fosterer so there is a possible chance the baby doesnt stay with you, you might have to facilitate birth parent contact etc. There's a real push for adopters to do this because it lessens placement changes etc, its fairly common.

We were given lots of profiles to look at, and some profiles are more popular than others. I imagine with Prestons back ground that he may have some concerns in his profile which may put others off. For example babies where there is a higher likelihood of delay, where mum has used drugs and alcohol, where there's genetic issues possible or where fas is possible.

Ultimately there are babies in the system but they tend to enter and exit quickly. I know a few adopters who by chance ended up with fairly young babies via the traditional route, and even more by the f2a route. There are babies, the matching of them just can be more competitive. When we were adopting, girls where more in demand, and it was seen as more of a risk to take a 12 month old than a 2 year old because there was less known about them

In my experience its not that gay people skip a queue or that their experience is any different to the rest of adopters. I saw plenty getting declined, getting older kids etc

I also wonder if the fear of reporting worrying behaviour and being called 'homophobic' played any part in this? In the same way many women are scared to call out men in womens spaces ay work or the whole grooming gang thing?
Like people in official positions are scared to be seen as 'phobic' and potentially face repremands themselves so they don't push things that they might normally do in other circumstances?

Possibly played into it. It sounds like there was a lot of support available, but very centred on the adopters who sound very plausible and articulate.

@Paddingtonscare thanks for that explanation...so the actual selection process seemed OK, it all went wrong once Preston was in that home.

Like pp I don't think even the loveliest male can substitute for a mother. Of course some widowers cope well but male adoption is a deliberate deprivation of a mother figure.

I feel the same about males buying babies via surrogacy. I think it breaches the baby's human rights to remove him from his (or any) Mum. (Btw I know females employ surrogates too.) So many ethical questions. Some countries have banned surrogacy altogether.