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? 💙

Our government is dragging its feet on implementing the Online Safety Act, according to Jess Phillips - she says this is one of the reasons she has resigned. Safeguarding seems to be an afterthought most of the time. Mandelson and his pals are spread through the government like dry rot.

During another sleepless night I wondered how our society has got so bad. I have no answers.

Maybe not after all this evidence but I recall Savile's personal assistant or secretary didn't believe he was guilty of anything even after hundreds of victims came forward.

I think some people just don't want to know, it is so shocking.

Out of interest I checked out what is being reported online by the mainstream media. Local newspapers good comprehensive coverage. Ditto the BBC. The Telegraph has covered in depth. Mail, Express etc all updating regularly.The Times a brief paragraph or two the other week. The Guardian basically tumbleweed.

Edited to add, not watching TV news at the moment so maybe it is being covered there.

I can see three articles about it in the Guardian. I'm sure they'll report the verdict too. They aren't reporting daily gory details of the abuse like some papers are. That's not necessarily a bad thing. 5 News aren't reporting daily on the details of the abuse either but I'm sure will report the verdict.

Ah thanks I used google so that was my perception. Actually I think a lot of the details were best left in the courtroom but it must be a difficult call.

This is horrendous. I cannot believe the number of failures in the system - so many points at which someone's suspicions should've been triggered or listened to, and yet...nothing. I can't help but think that the fact that they were a gay couple had something to do with the willingness to overlook red flags.

Poor Preston would have been safer left with his mother, which is a terribly sad thing, considering he was probably taken off her for good reason.

I would say that they planned to abuse him from the very beginning - or at least Varley did. You don't just accidentally fall into paedophilia - he would've been feeling those urges his entire adult life. It makes sense that a paedophiliac sexual abuser would want to procure a child they can sexually abuse - then there's no need to hide the abuse from the child's parents.

As for what they planned to do once he was old enough to communicate...perhaps initially they planned to do only a 'few' things of lesser severity while he was too young to remember, but then it escalated out of control and the feverish drive to continue abusing made them kick that can down the road.

It's heinous. Some people are really just a blight on the earth. They do no good being allowed to continue to exist; better to blot them out swiftly, and remember their victims.

As well as that poor child and the dreadful abuse he suffered, I’ve also thought a lot about the birth mum and how she must be feeling. Drugs were mentioned (as in his birth history). I mean I’m sure the reason for Preston being removed at birth were justified (it’s a high threshold) but for her to discover the awfulness to which her baby was removed from her care must be absolutely heartbreaking. I have a history of drug addiction (many years in recovery) and I wouldn’t have made a good mum when I was in the thick of my addiction but the horrors that child endured are beyond any poor parenting that a drug addicted mother would have offered him. 😢😢

I find it very chilling that there is such a push towards adoption / surrogate arrangements involving men. Cutting out mothers who after all should be a baby's first protector. This poor baby might have been safer with his birth mother or foster mother. As it was, were any health visitors involved? Unless they were totally deceived they should surely have noticed the baby's demeanour.

The health issues and hospital admissions were a chance for nurses to see him naked. Were they fooled by the guile of the "lovely" dads? There must have been a timeline of escalating abuse. Every single professional who had contact with this baby has questions to answer.

Shocking about Jimmy Savile's secretary not being willing to believe in his guilt. Her need to be involved in a glamorous lifestyle must have skewed her sense of decency. Did the two defendants here have lots of friends in the community? Was them being accused of these things seen as homophobia and thus dismissed?

Yes - definitely safer with the foster mother! And while it might not have been great with his birth mother, I have to think it would've been better than this.

I think so too, regarding adoption. I'm not at all homophobic, but I do think that the mother/baby dyad is incredibly important, and that in infants up to older toddlers at least, a mother figure should be involved in primary caregiving (whether foster mother, aunt, grandmother etc).

I'd imagine many professionals are simply overworked, uninterested, and not cynical enough - so things that should make them extra attentive instead end up just falling through the cracks. But surely concerns should've been picked up. And the foster mother being concerned - that was something that should have been paid attention to as well. That was her protective instincts going off at her, I wouldn't be surprised.

Frankly, I'm cynical, and with good reason when it comes to men - and usually my cynicism is merited. There needs to be a lot more care and attention placed on men adopting without an actively involved woman, whether they're straight, gay, or bi. The issue isn't sexuality, it's men.

As for people who refuse to believe in guilt...I can imagine a lot of people just want to put their heads in the sand, and can't stand the idea that they care about an abuser, they worked with an abuser, or that they were made complicit in the abuse without knowing. It's easier for them to just deny it.

They had the 9-12 month health visitor review. I’m not sure what she could determined from his demeanour, especially if she didn’t know him well. I’ve had medical appointments with my baby where he’s been off and unsettled the whole time because babies can have very unpredictable moods. From what we’ve heard in the trial there are lots of happy looking pictures and videos of Preston with the defendants so he may well have seemed happy with them. I’m generally the last one to defend health visitors because in my experience they vary between bad and useless, but unless she missed bruises or other signs of abuse, I don’t think she can be expected to comment on the demeanour of newly adopted baby who she doesn’t know at all.

One of the things which is actually really upsetting is that Preston probably had bonded with his dads and looked to them for love and comfort, despite what they did to him. I have a 13mo and when I’ve done things like hold him down for a blood test or forced him to take meds he hates taking, he still wants me to comfort him even though I’m the one who’s upset him. It makes me want to cry to think of poor Preston doing the same after he endured such cruelty.

I was thinking about demeanour because the child abuse specialist said the photos and videos she studied were showing him being in a state of "frozen watchfulness" indicative of emotional abuse.

A social worker "pondered" whether there was a "problem" at the home of a baby allegedly murdered by his adoptive parents, but decided there was not, a court heard.
Helen Magee visited the Blackpool home of Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley to check on 13-month-old Preston Davey in July 2023, after his third admission to hospital.
In her notes, she wrote: "You were happy there with both your daddies. And this made me ponder a little as to whether there was a problem that I couldn't see. I decided there wasn't an issue."

I honestly don't know what to make of this.

It’s easy to be wise with hindsight I suppose.

Quite agree. Although to be fair the specialist will have seen a lot more abused children than the HV. and children do get grumpy at times. But three hospital visits in a few weeks? Surely that merits extra scrutiny. These lying bastards must have put on a very innocent act.

My granddaughter is 16 months old and this case has really shaken me up.

We can't expect health visitors and social workers to have super human powers.
The last thing they would have wanted to do was disrupt a happy baby who was already with his 3rd set of parents.

Exactly this. The majority of the children presenting with accidental injuries will have been accidental, of course we only hear about the case where they get it wrong.

It's probably quite common for abusers to be excellent at appearing like lovely, caring people in public

I posted upthread, and I think the issues is that he brought into hospital as an ill baby, not an injured one for the first two admissions. Perhaps medical staff could have been more curious about bruising, but the only bruise I’ve seen mentioned in relation to the earlier visit is the forehead bruise which was explained by a video of him pulling an activity cube onto his head. The prosecution’s case is that’s not a reasonable explanation because the dates don’t match, but the NHS doesn’t have the luxury of that much time to scrutinise details and the post fact knowledge of which children to focus on. My baby was admitted a few weeks ago and it was so busy, lots of staff sickness, no beds, and it was pure firefighting to get through all the sick children there. Bruises to the forehead of a crawling baby are pretty normal and they had an explanation for it which I think would have been accepted by most medical staff. The broken arm should have been paid more attention to, but I’m not surprised that visiting for a potential seizure and a chest infection in a few weeks would be seen as much else than overconcerned parents.

I think this is a really interesting point, and God knows I don’t want to make this political at all but we are seeing first hand the damage that broken services cause.

Professionals who don’t have the time to look at the whole picture, services cut to the bone, a broken health and social care system..I fear that this is only going to get worse.

Of course there are failings in this case that need to be addressed, and the only people responsible for Preston’s death are those two evil bastards, but most child protection social workers will have a case load of at least twenty. That is twenty children who are some of the most vulnerable and at risk in society that need protecting. How can one person manage that? How can they possibly carry out so many visits in a week alongside all the other work that must be done, multi agency meetings, court etc?

I remember doing a particular safeguarding training a few years back and it mentioned a head teacher convicted of SA of children.
It was mentioned because they said he had spent years ( decades even) putting in the ground work grooming every one around him before he abused any child.
He was held in such high regard by everyone around him professionally to the point that people were incapable of seeing what was happening in plain sight.

I think we as humans do learn to trust people and feel positively about them and this is a good and necessary thing that is exploited and abused by very clever and ultimately very disturbed men.

Nobody wants to think they would know and possibly even love someone capable of such things and it must be devastating to experience this when the terrible truth comes out, you would probably never get over it.

I do fully agree with you @ItsPickleRick, services have been stripped to the bare bones, services that might have even prevented Preston from being removed from his birth mother ( there are no real options now other than removal).

Preston has been failed but I have no doubt JV held court in every room he was in and was an expert at the game of manipulation.
Am quite surprised that his partner and co accused (can’t remember his name) hasn’t claimed he was a victim of coercive control and given evidence against JV, surely based on what seems like limited evidence against him ot would be a get out.

@Victoriawould24 Agreed.

I think one of the most important things people can be aware of, is that being an upstanding member of the community, doesn’t make someone (especially a man, of course) any less likely to be a sadistic predator. In some ways, it makes me more suspicious of them, as it makes such a good cover and provides them with easier access to potential victims.

There's nothing wrong with being sensibly wary of every adult (particularly men), and open to the possibility that anyone might do the unthinkable.

They can’t. It’s a massive problem, and I’m sure is the reason that they burn out quickly and turn over of staff is high. It’s so easy to see the red flags with hindsight, but a worried parent bringing a child in with relatively minor illnesses/ injuries would fly well under the radar of busy a&e staff. The nuance of these situations just isn’t there for the general
public to understand when something awful to a child happens and the headlines blame staff
for missed opportunities/ lack of curiosity etc. It’s often far more subtle, and in a busy department, easily hidden by a parent who obviously isn’t being open with what’s happened, or to a social worker who is overwhelmed by caseloads. There needs to be a lot more funding into early support for families/ monitoring and support by social care staff for those families struggling. It won’t stop all those who seemingly target and abuse children like in this case (if that is deemed the case by the court) but may go some way to reducing harm to some children.

How can men so evil walk amongst us , truly
horrific .

I completely agree.

When I started my social work degree, a good 90% of my cohort wanted to work in child protection. By the end of the degree, none of us did. Something needs to change, and quickly.

As I’ve said up thread, when I adopted I was not asked explicitly if I would harm a child. I know it’s basic but reactions to hard questions tell us a lot. And no one should be asked just once. And scrutiny on a&e/GP/hospital admissions needs to be flagged up in the system. Again, greater scrutiny. People kill and harm babies and they look like respectable people.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-tragic-life-of-preston-davey-frozen-watchfulness/id1653090985?i=1000768568329