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? 💙

I'm so angry for that beautiful baby. The abuse couuld have continued for years had he not passed away. I really hope the two of them get long sentences, the accomplice is just as bad - if not worse imo. Sick twisted pa*dos. Throw the book at them judge.

Didn’t Brady and Hindley get whole life sentences? Preston’s father has never been mentioned. Where is he I wonder. If I’d been on that jury I’d have gone home and broken down last night. Poor dear Preston xx

Not originally no. Only changed to a WLO in 1997.

I’ve an 11 month old and I am absolutely horrified . They are so innocent and dependent and vulnerable at this age . I can’t even read about it properly but have seen snippets . How anyone could be that evil is beyond the comprehension of most people I think

I'm sorry to say it but two strangers should never be able to adopt a baby. It's far too much of a risk. A child who can communicate maybe but definitely not a baby. Preston should have stayed with his foster parents who are actually known to the system.

I was only replying to the part which said she chose not to have him, I wasn’t making any judgement on whether she should have been allowed him or not

The video of the child falling asleep and then being woken up and still trying to smile was so sad.

Poor little boy.

Poor little Preston, I can’t stop thinking about him. Hopefully he’s at peace now.

Will be watching the news with interest on Thursday when those monsters get sentenced.
May each day bring them nothing but fear and misery.

She was already raising Preston's older sister. And wanted to raise Preston as well.

She got sick with breast cancer, she was diagnosed after Preston was born.

This is why Preston was placed in foster care. She asked social services if Preston could remain in foster care while she got treatment. But social services couldn't/ wouldn't wait so they arrange for Preston to be adopted.

From one article

“We wanted social services to allow Preston to stay with foster parents until I was better but they wouldn’t allow it."

This has been reported in the media (The Times, for example) and the grandmother has explained it in interviews. And in the Daily Mail podcast, the grandmother is interviewed, saying 'I wish I never had cancer'.

The poor older sister, she has to live with the fact that she was kept and safe with her grandmother, and her little brother was given to monsters.

Obviously how things turned out Preston would have been better anywhere, including with his own birth mother. But placing a baby with a woman well into her 60s with cancer was probably always not really going to work too well. I can see why adoption was considered a better option, it’s who the adopters were in this instance.

I do have reservations about forced adoption but I think it probably was the right thing in this case.

The foster carers are also strangers. They are assessed similarly to adopters.

Foster care is typically the riskiest place a child can be statistically (at least it used to be when I did the training), keeping babies in foster also gives additional moves and there are limited placements so freeing them up is important

Most young babies in the system are now foster to adopt, where babies are fostered by someone who is a prospective adopter. It keeps a single placement for children, allows contact with birth parents while its going through court. Im not sure how I feel about it at times though as it feels slightly tainted that while birth parents are fighting their hardest that their baby is already with an adopter. Obviously huge risk for the adopters too who also aren't always prepared on how to manage parent contact and what happens if a baby is then returned.

I think he is in jail. But yes, I’m sure he feels helpless and powerless.

To be honest , I can only read the headlines. I know I’m not getting the full story bits it’s so sickening. It’s got to be one of the worst child abuse cases ever.
I hope they get what they truly deserve in prison and every last minute of their lives is agony.

I think what gets me most about this case is no one would have know about the sexual abuse until he died, he needed to die to get justice which is an awful realisation. Maybe the external injuries would have eventually been noticed but they would have explained it away and maybe got a slap on the hand and continued their abuse. I’m surprised nothing came out about other children or indecent images online etc. Maybe it will come out eventually. Maybe this was their first time committing such crimes.

I agree. How many women were denied being able to adopt that beautiful little boy. Women desperate for a child of their own. That Mother Nature urge to love and care for a child. Those two monsters didn’t have that. There’s a reason it’s mainly women at the school gates and baby clubs, it’s because they want to be there. They will put careers on hold to become a mum first and foremost.

I have actually reached out to the GP as I feel like i have fell into a depression as a result of reading about this case I also have a 10 month old and it has honestly had a massive impact on my mental health everytime I look at my son i see poor preston every part of his life was torture and Its all I can think about I can't sleep or anything my heart is heavy , reach out to someone if it's getting to much , i have came off social media and am not watching any news or anything as I just can't bare to see it.

Honestly my heart is breaking for him that video of him trying to sleep broke me yesterday i can't bare to see it , I see his face everytime I close my eyes

I haven’t read the whole thread but the child’s mother was a convicted murderer. She and a friend murdered and tortured an old lady in her own home. She was 15 at the time.

She and her friend should have been locked up for life then

That has absolutely no bearing on what happened to Preston. It was morally reprehensible of the press to publish this (and I know she’s been outspoken about it and that’s her right; it doesn’t give others the right to breach her privacy in this way.)

I know it has no bearing on the case. Do you mean the public had no right to know who the child’s mother is ? I for one would like to know who this woman is ,who probably has a new identity and lives in the community with vulnerable people.
Its a failure of the system

She should never have been freed from jail in the first place to have a child that was subsequently put into care.

Surely it shows that our justice system, that we are supposed to trust , doesn’t work ?

And that is exactly why her name should never have been released. People want to know all sorts of things; doesn’t make it any of our business.

I don’t know why anybody ‘wants to know’ who the birth mother of a murdered baby was.

Children committing serious crimes is a difficult matter, but even if she’d been an adult when she committed this crime it’s unlikely she’d have been ‘locked up for life’; much longer, yes, but she’d probably still have been childbearing age.

And what about the children who exist before their mother attacks someone; what do we do with them? Arthur Labinjo-Hughes’ mother was in prison IIRC. I guess that makes her unworthy of any sympathy too, which is what people are basically saying. And that’s disgusting.

Have you seen how awful and sadistic his mother’s crime was though? I think it’s harder to have sympathy for someone who has inflicted the same cruelty and pain on another person and their family.

She is not the one on trial here and she has not committed any offence that should be up for discussion. In this context she’s the victim, not the perpetrator.