Former teacher guilty of sexually abusing and murdering baby boy he wanted to adopt - CPS

[IwantToRetire]

Distressing content
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A former teacher has been found guilty of sexually abusing and murdering a baby boy that he planned to adopt.

Jamie Varley, 37, was convicted at Preston Crown Court of murder, child cruelty, sexual offences and indecent images relating to 13-month-old Preston Davey.

John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was convicted of allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and sexual assault.

Varley was in the process of adopting baby Preston (also known as Elijah) with his partner McGowan-Fazakerley. Just four months after being placed with the couple, Preston was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital unconscious and in cardiac arrest. Sadly, Preston could not be saved.

Varley tried falsely claiming that Preston had accidentally drowned in a bath, but prosecutors were able to prove that his injuries were consistent with his airways being obstructed.

The evidence presented by the prosecution proved that in the final months of Preston’s life, he was routinely ill-treated, sexually abused and physically assaulted – suffering more than 40 separate injuries.

CPS statement continues at https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-west/news/former-teacher-guilty-sexually-abusing-and-murdering-baby-boy-he-wanted-adopt

More from a BBC report - also distressing:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyp77l79e9o

I thought there was a thread about this, but cant find one. But sorry if a duplicate.

I really only wanted to post out of respect for this poor baby and the horror of his short life.

RIP

No, you are totally normal. But not for the lunatic fringes here.

But part of safeguarding should involve equipping adopters with the right skills and identifying people who will be resilient enough to cope.

Atm utterly naive, inexperienced adults are given some of the most traumatised children in society and left to get on with it.

The social workers probably thought this couple was ideal because one worked with children. But he worked in a secondary school. Did either of them have any experience with babies, with challenging needs?

Of course this doesn't explain why Preston was abused and killed but it does raise issues which I hope the serious case review looks at.

The end result though is likely to be more demands on adopters rather than increased support from social services.

When I adopted in 2001, there was a case around that time of a man who adopted with his second wife and he killed the child. His first wife came forward to say he had a terrible temper and could be violent. As a result, adoption approval processes were changed so that ex partners are now consulted.

They do try to weed out people.

I am very pro adoption. I have two adopted children myself, both now adults. But I had no clue what I was getting into. Adoption runs on everyone involved pretending everything will be happy ever after.

Imo there should be intensive training up front, with total honesty about the possible/probable challenges. This would weed out a lot of people who think they are different, they will choose the non traumatised kids, they will be amazing parents, and instead get properly trained, realistic adoptive parents.

Those monsters will both be killed in prison just like Huntley and the others. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

I think there's some serious bad faith discussion on this thread at this point. The underlying fact remains: a little baby boy was seriously failed, several times over by several agencies all apparently lacking any professional curiosity. And I sincerely hope it wakes up those with safeguarding duties and leads to a careful review of all current processes.

In France all children under 6 or 7 have their genitals inspected at GP checkups. I'm not saying we should do that here but it has helped to identify FGM cases which seem to be caught more there.

No, this is not accurate either.

With adoption, the state has the right to set rules around what the prospective adopters can and can't do. Nudity of adults around the children is not normally allowed during the pre adoption order period. Once you have the order you can do what you like.

Considering you think I said children should have their genitals inspected I'm not going to pay much attention to what you think I said here either!

If this was standard procedure, like going for jabs, I would be happy to do this. Provided non-adoptive families also partook. Obviously, no one here would want society’s most vulnerable children - by virtue of the fact that they have been legally severed from their families of origin - to feel more othered than they are already.

This thread on dads taking baths with children has varying opinions.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4769880-dad-taking-a-bath-with-young-child?page=1

A non biologically related man doing so arguably IS potentially more worrying.

Yes, there is. It's beyond playground, but there we go.

Thank you for this info

Did the bath incident happen before the adoption was finalised?

Agreed.

I agree with this.

Agree that the main point is this little boy has been failed.

Did either of them have any experience with babies, with challenging needs?

Yes, one of them at least made a big thing of having baby sat lots of his nieces and nephews, and friends' children. Presumably that was used as evidence that he would be able to deal with a small child.

Of course it now also means that all those parents will be afraid that he may have been abusing their children too. That will have to be looked into.

(Preferably without forcibly inspecting the children's genitals though! 🙄[

This is not true. There are no rules about this. When were we supposed to be notified of these rules? Shit! All those times I took my girls swimming and we shared a changing room! I’d love to see the policies and procedures around these rules. Obviously, every case should be considered on its own merit. If sexual abuse is suspected, then it would be obvious.

I understand why you're defending adopters @ThePieceHall and I'm sorry you and others are not better supported. Adopters should not have to shut up and feel grateful. I have suggested device screening on the other thread but I was thinking about this particular case and the period when Preston's hospital visits had triggered a police notification and social work inquiries - if they had been able to access JV and JMF's devices, they'd have found the videos.

As others have said Adoption Now is a regional agency, not a 'gay' agency (just looked at their website, they do have pictures of babies with biogs. I shouldn't say this but my local dog rescue has the same format). But it's interesting to learn both that 'one of the massive issues in child protection is the proliferation of agencies for profit' and that agencies are the ones who screen potential adopters, which I hadn't realised. I also have thought online footprint screening could be useful at that vetting stage but I doubt the agencies have the resources or permissions beyond a certain point.

I don't say that with any intent to hound adopters for some unspecified length of time, of course. People do want to discuss anything that might stop dangerous men accessing babies, naturally. I think these conversations very much need to be had about surrogate agencies and transactions, which are taking off commercially in many countries.

It did, yes. The adoption wasn't finalised, they murdered Preston before it could be.

Tbh I don't know if they ever got the adoption order - i have looked at timelines but can't see this. Often people talk about adoption as being when the child is placed with adopters, but that is a matter of placement, where either party can call a halt at any time and the child would go back into foster care. Social workers visit regularly during this period and there are restrictions, like on who can look after the child, who can stay in the house, going on holiday.

Some people wait a long time before applying for the adoption order - often because they realise how much harder it is going to be to parent the child and they are trying to get agreement from the LA for more support.

You can't apply until the child has lived with you for at least 10 weeks and the gov website says it can take 6 weeks to get back to you. Then there is a hearing.

As Preston died four months after placement, they either didn't have the adoption order yet or it was very recent.⁷

Thanks, I suspected so.

They did not have the adoption order. This is really easy information to find.

Agree. Certainly my friend whose adoption failed was basically just left to it, with a really challenging (but lovely) little boy. The total lack of support or realistic training post placement (she was just left to it basically and it turned out he had problems she'd had no awareness of and no experience of dealing with - and she was handling it on her own) failed the both of them horribly in the end. She was distraught, felt guilty and depressed, he ended up having to go back to his foster parents.

It was awful and traumatic for all. I still think about him now and hope he is doing okay. He was 3 when he was placed with her. There's a massive gap there between 'on paper' and reality from all concerned really.

The pictures of babies are generic photos. There is no way any agency would be permitted to breach the privacy of a child in care on a publicly accessible website. The LAs as corporate parents would have really strict rules about this. These will all be photos from modelling agencies of parents who have given their permission for their children to have their privacy breached. Again, another discussion for another day. Thank you. Yes, you have understood perfectly that one of the biggest issues in children’s social care and adoption is the proliferation of private, profit-making agencies, plus private, profit-making children’s care home providers. The average annual cost of a children’s home in this country is now in excess of £300K. There are simply not enough foster carers and not enough adopters and now judges in the family court division are avoiding making freeing orders for children to be adopted, because they know there are no places for them to go. Meanwhile, the Dubai-backed private children’s home providers are raking it in. People really need to wake up and understand the reality of the paucity of children’s services now. But still, the demands for heads to roll for Preston’s death will continue. There is no money, there are no services. There are not enough adopters. There are not enough foster carers. There are not enough placements for children who are not safe at home. There aren’t actually enough social workers now, because who would want to do it, living in terror of a child dying on your watch? And knowing that you would be vilified in the media? I’m not really sticking up for adopters. I’m just trying to correct a lot of factually incorrect information. (And also point out that women kill babies and children too). There’s been so much guff written on here: agencies for gay men/ rules on bathing for adopters / checks on genitals etc etc.

There are in fact multiple documents from local LEAs and others including foster parents with regard specifically to looked after children, worded in multiple different ways, which make it extremely clear that "appropriate boundaries around nudity" and not being naked in front of the children being cared for, including at bathtimes is a key expectation. That would almost certainly apply in early adoption placements as well.

Preston's foster mother clearly thought so and did understand that appropriacy, which is why she was so incensed about their claim that she had suggested "free willy time" and went to court to say so. She knew she wouldn't have advocated that they do that with Preston because she knew it was a safeguarding issue.

Was she wrong?