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

JACOB LINDORFF, (birth name unknown) age 5, Gloucester Twp., New Jersey. Died December 14, 2001 of blunt force trauma to head. Also suffered from 2nd degree burns on feet, haemorrhaging in 1 eye; bruises, and seizures. Adoptive mother Heather Lindorff, 36, was found guilty of 2nd degree endangering, aggravated assault and sentenced to 6 years.

Adoptive father, James, 54, sentenced to 4 years probation and 400 hours of community service for child abuse. Couple also adopted 3 bio-sisters from Russia, Jacob was one of a fraternal twins; placed with the Lindorffs only 18 months after the sisters arrived.

That same month DYFS learned that children were back living with Lindorffs. Medical examinations found four children were malnourished, abused, and neglected.

In September 2007, James Lindorff and Mildred Cullinan were charged in a murder-for-hire plot to kill a witness.

Read my post again.

Each year gay couples and single men adopt hundreds of children. So what is your plan for those children in the future? Just longer time in foster care?

There is no evidence that those children are at any greater risk compared to children raised by straight adopters, lesbian couples or single women.

In fact, what evidence there is tells us that children adopted by gay (and lesbian) couples tend to have marginally better outcomes than those adopted by straight couples.

So those who advocate for removing hundreds of adopters each year from the pool should tell us what plans they have for the children that would otherwise have been adopted.

I think I may have finally found a point where we can agree! As an experienced adopter, I utterly loathe the mantra of ‘fake it till you make it’. It’s reckless advice that can prevent adopters from reaching out for help if they are struggling. The reality is that some children are so traumatised from their prenatal and early life experiences, they may never be able to live happily in safe and loving homes.

Yes, they absolutely do.

The majority of babies removed from birth parents and freed for adoption by the courts have been exposed to drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse, poor nutrition and chaotic lifestyles while in utero. Many will be affected for the rest of their lives by neurodevelopmental conditions such as foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and neonatal abstinence syndrome.

Has it come out what school this man worked at? Were there any concerns raised about him there?

You're right, and 'fake it til you make it' was a flippant way of saying that building a bond of attachment requires doing the things early on that feel unnatural because the bond doesn't yet exist.

Certainly not intended as a mantra that should deter people from seeking help.

No, it's not nonsense at all, I'm afraid in this case. Two points.

• Status as adopted parents v foster carers. Under Regulation 25A of the Care Planning Regulations 2010, anyone who has a child placed with them for adoption is temporarily approved as what is known as a local authority foster carer until the final Adoption Order is granted in court, as per the below link. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/959/regulation/25A. As we have established, although Preston had been placed, the final adoption order had not yet been granted.The couple were effectively on probation still with Preston still in the care of the local authority.

• Safer Caring Rules At their stage in the adoption process, both JV and JMF were legally operating as foster carers under an interim care order. JV would therefore be bound by the exact same rules regarding nudity and bathing as any other foster parent. This includes no shared bathing, nudity etc and strict prohibition on naked photos.

Regardless, naked bathing of JV with Preston would not have been considered appropriate at this stage of the adoption process even though Preston had been placed with them, and in fact, as we know, absolutely did turn out to be a precursor to his sexual abuse by JV and ultimate murder. Both that and the naked photo-taking in fact would be safeguarding red flags at that point. As the jury found.

Your assumption that baby = high demand shows a really simplified understanding of the realities of the adoption process

I was talking about Preston, not the adoption process in general.

My assumption that a healthy, perfect, angelic looking little boy with huge eyes, a big smile, adorable curly hair and no record of abuse who had shown no issues in months with a foster placement would not be short of potential adoptive parents is correct, though, isn't it?

I'll eat my hat if a gay couple were the only people who could be found for Preston.

Yes, Kathryn Joyce's book The Child Catchers is very disturbing about adoption within some sections of that subculture.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Child-Catchers-Rescue-Trafficking-Adoption/dp/1586489429

Yes! That's a really important book.

There are also really great documentaries about the phenomenon of Evangelical Christians and 'paper orphans' and the corruption in international adoption.

This is a really good German documentary about what happened with Romanian orphanages after international adoption agencies took over. Lots of corruption and also several instances of peadophiles infiltrating the agencies and homes.

It was essentially child trafficking, under then guise of adoption.

I wasn’t getting at you, I know you understand the complexities here.

It would seem sensible to let potential adopters first 'train' themselves by becoming foster parents: They would need to be very closely supported and supervised by other, more experienced, possibly retired foster parents, and some 'proxy grannies'. They would also need to be subject to frequent proper checks.

Technology could make this cheaper and easier. As well as visits to the home, and as well as an obligation to take the baby/child to medical check-ups, people could be asked to switch on a home camera, to record both the good and the bad interactions with the child. This would not be to find fault. It would show where they are doing well, and where there are difficulties, so they can be helped and advised by others who have experienced exactly the same problems: Foster parents and adopters have the necessary expertise: Social workers do not.

Home visits should not, or not only, be carried out by the peculiarly inept 'social workers', but always with cynical experienced knowledgeable experts, i.e. other existing or retired foster parents, (but not the ones already known to the novice foster parents, so with no personal bias or investment in 'approving' everything the potential parents do, because they are strangers, and not easily conned by manipulative or plausible 'friends').

Preston's foster mother, and his grandmother, were correctly alarmed, and incorrectly ignored. NHS professionals, and the unspeakably complacent, ideologically 'captured' social workers, were easily fobbed off.

Remember Baby P, whose mother smeared chocolate spread over his face to conceal injuries? Seven previous babies had been taken from her, but nothing made the social worker suspicious.

Nothing at present obliges a parent or prospective parent to attend a medical centre for the child to be stripped and checked and weighed, as well as vaccinated, at appropriate intervals. (And of course signs of venereal disease or penetration in anus or mouth or vagina should be routinely looked for, by an all female medical staff, as well as checking for 'female circumcision' i.e. female 'castration'.)

Knowing this will happen, at intervals, including to children of birth parents, would prevent a lot of abuse in the first place. Sarah Sharma and other children 'punished' by beating, and including 'home-schooled' children, would have been protected to some extent by knowing the law bans harming children, and knowing that parents are not, in Britain, slave-owners of their children, free to do as they like, to their own human 'property' regardless of injury.

Adopters mostly work. They get adoption leave and mostly go back to work. They aren't going to give up their jobs to foster for x amount of time.

Your suggestion puts more and more onus onto adopters, who already have plenty of checks.

The problem is with the system, which assumes that just about anyone can adopt, tries to get people quickly through the approval process, places incredibly challenging children in families totally unprepared for what is to come with little support, and does the bare minimum of supervision in the post adoption period.

When social workers visited us during this period, it was clearly just a tick box meeting. I would spend the meeting expressing my concerns (we were told the children had no issues but both were subsequently diagnosed with adhd, autism and one with a moderate learning disability), but no help was forthcoming - in fact the minutes of the meetings simply noted that the girls seemed happy and healthy and ended on "the placement continues to meet their needs".

They never took the children aside to ask them anything, play games with them etc. It was a long journey for the sws and they did the bare minimum

Years ago, state schools were regularly visited by the 'nit-nurse'. Knowing the entire school would have their hair examined meant there was no shame, disgrace or difficulty in accepting it. If the entire school knows everyone gets a (discreet) weight and physical MOT, at intervals, and that even home-schooled and privately schooled children must have the same checks, it would seem likely to be accepted fairly readily, apart from those parents, step parents etc. who are already abusing, or intend to abuse, children over whom they have power.

The full MOT method would mean that if some children have questionable results, such as unusual bruising, it would be possible to recall the child for a follow -up, without anyone knowing why. It could be hinted that there was an unusual pulse rate, or an unusual increase, or lack of increase, in height: It could be anything. Parents, children and school-friends would not be 'identified' or marked out, just for needing a repeat of a medical MOT.

You don't necessarily see a photo first, you see a profile. These profiles do not make for easy reading. The profile will be full of information about the birth parents and what caused the child to gobinto care.

I only read 3 sets of profiles. One concerned a baby. His background was extremely traumatic. For a baby to be removed at birth, the profile will undoubtedly be very difficult. You have to get past that before you see the child. And actually, the one thing they did press home on our adoption course was to focus on the profile and not on photos. Traumatised children are often incredibly engaging - it is a survival trait and not how children normally behave. My younger daughter was almost the friendliest, happiest, most willing to speak to adults child in the class - it's not normal, it's a sign of disrupted attachment and is a big red flag.

Well, here is the job description for an independent reviewing officer. It looks like a desk job to me. It is all about managing case loads and knowing procedures. There is nothing in the skills section about being good with children, being able to identify harm, anything like that. https://support-for-social-workers.education.gov.uk/explore-roles/independent-reviewing-officer

Despite what we are told prison is not the holiday camp you describe. Both perpetrators of this crime will need to be in solitary confinement for their protection. And rape in male prisons is endemic.
I am not sorry for them for they abused a small, helpless child. Basically they persuaded Social Services to given a living sex toy. But I do not want them harmed because that harms others.

It very clearly says that from that brief snapshot that a key part of the IRO job is to act as a first point of contact for children and advocate for their interests. IROs are most commonly very senior and experienced social workers. Just because it doesn’t specifically say in this very limited description that they don’t visit the homes of children, does not mean it doesn’t happen. There are statutory guidelines on how often children who are looked after, as Preston was, should be visited.

You have just made adoption really unpalatable for everyone. We are not state-owned babysitters. We are parents. We are the most vetted parents in the country. Also, some adopters are foster carers first, this is called early permanence. Finally, the state would not want us to be foster carers in most cases because it would have to pay us, like foster carers.

Actually in the Preston case the photo was put on a site for gay men to choose. And there was a perfect, and eager, adopter who knew and loved him dearly: His own grandmother: She was already happily bringing up his sister, and they both were counting the days till he could join them.

But an unfortunate coincidence meant that grandmother's masectomy and then her follow-up cancer treatment coincided with his birth, and his first months. Her surgeons would not permit her to lift a baby, until she got her 'all clear' and recovered her strength.

She was almost at that point, when social workers swooped on the foster mother, refusing to allow her to keep Preston for just another couple of months, which was all the surgeon had asked, before baby could join his sister in care of his grandmother.

Grandmother and foster mother did not live far apart and were in close contact, which they had agreed to continue, so the break from one carer to the next would be a gentle transition for him.

He was not a deep sleeper, (pre-natal damage?) but apart from that, was not at all a 'problem' for the foster mother. Nor likely to be a problem for his own grandmother and sister.

She wasn’t really perfect, was she? She was well into her sixties and suffering from cancer. My heart goes out to her, but I can quite see why it was felt adoption was in Preston’s best interests.

There's a site specifically for gay men to choose babies?

No, there isn’t.

I think that's more a surrogacy thing where the trade in babies flourishes?