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

[IwantToRetire]

Distressing content
-----

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

Relatives often offer to take children and are refused. This can be for all sorts of reasons. Just because grandmother says she wanted to do and declares herself able is simply her perspective. Social services clearly had misgivings.

Obviously I don't know the ins and outs, but social services are duty bound to consider family members first and there will be reasons for rejecting the family member and going for adoption. They can't defend themselves by going public on their reasons, but I would imagine there were good reasons to say no.

Foster carers often report their charges to be easy - of course they are highly experienced and often not making the demands on children that parents will. My girls' foster mother was one of those super carers who had fostered several hundred children. She was able to do this partly by keeping a distance between herself and the children, feeding and looking after them, letting them play in her big garden. It was a lovely environment for children rescued from a horrible situation but she never eg took them out of the house. They didn't go to nursery, have to share with other children. Foster care is not always real life as most people know it.

Having had cancer is so common, it cannot rule anyone out of caring for a child. Being over 60 is so common, it cannot rule anyone out of caring for a child.

Do you suggest that every grandmother must have their grandchild snatched away by the State? Everyone who has ever had cancer, too?

At sixty, she could potentially live another forty years. If a mother has died or for whatever reason cannot care for a baby, the mother's mother is the most natural one to love and care for him.

Preston's grandmother already cares, very well, for his sister. Preston's highly experienced foster mother had established a good relationship with his grandmother, and was extremely satisfied that within two months, he would be able to make a seamless transition from one home to another. They were nearby, and contact would continue. The surgeons wanted just a two month delay, before grandmother began lifting a one year old baby.

In what possible way could a pair of gay men, hostile to contact with grandmother or foster mother, and not living nearby, were 'superior' to his grandmother?

If you truly believe that being sixty, or having had cancer, make a woman an incapable and unfit person to take care of her own beloved grandchildren, do you therefore believe she should have her little grand-daughter taken away from her, too, and adopted by strangers, ideally the 'superior caste' of gay men who have never lived with a child?

I think this would be a good idea.

Exactly. People need to realise that rape and murder in male prisoners isn't something to cheer on, it shows the staff has lost control.

I don't feel any sympathy either. But I want prison staff to be safe. And some people could be wrongly imprisoned.

You could literally be describing my son with that description.

And yet he waited two years before being adopted because a match could not be found until we came along.

Maybe they were queuing out the door to adopt him. But you don't know that. because there are lots of factors that may or may not have been at play that none of us know about. Almost all babies in the adoption system have significant uncertainty about their future needs because of their in utero. You have no idea and nor do I what uncertainties might have existed for Preston.

You're reading of the law is wrong.

Regulation 25A governs the arrangements for early permanence/foster to adopt routes. 25A allows LAs to identify a prospective adopter for a child who will probably need to be adopted, but for whom a placement order has not yet been granted. This is most often newborn babies. The prospective adoptive parents are foster parent before the child is placed for adoption and are adoptive parents after the placement order is made. The idea is that a child gets continuity of care.

The more usual and traditional route of adoption takes place under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, section 25 of which says:

"25Parental responsibility
(1)This section applies while—
(a)a child is placed for adoption under section 19 or an adoption agency is authorised to place a child for adoption under that section, or
(b)a placement order is in force in respect of a child.
(2)Parental responsibility for the child is given to the agency concerned.
(3)While the child is placed with prospective adopters, parental responsibility is given to them.
(4)The agency may determine that the parental responsibility of any parent or guardian, or of prospective adopters, is to be restricted to the extent specified in the determination."

In other words - from the moment a child is placed with adoptive parents, those adoptive parents hold parental responsibility, shared with the local authority before the adoption order is made. Adoptive parents are not foster carers or subject to the same rules as foster carers in that scenario.

Actually in the Preston case the photo was put on a site for gay men to choose.
'Put on a site for gay men to choose' is wrong though, isn't it. The site in question is a site called Linkmaker. It is not a site specifically for gay men. Most prospective adopters are given access to Linkmaker to view the actual profiles of children that are family finding.

"Restricted" is important here. There are rules around what you can and can't do after placement. You can't decide to home school for example. You probably can't go abroad.

They do not have responsibility for checking on children in their placement. My friend is a social worker - i just spoke to her. Turns out her husband is an independent reviewing officer and it's an office job. He doesn't visit children.

You can go abroad, but you need permission of the local authority. Likewise, you can't apply for a passport yourself. But the key thing is that the poster claiming that adopters who are pre-adoption order are bound by the same rules as foster parents was totally wrong.

It's been pointed out to you before that there was never a point where this was a choice between a grandmother and two gay men.

That's not how the adoption system works. If you're going to pronounce on something with certainty please get your facts right.

Yes, which article said it was a site only for gay men? I didn't think there were sites like that though it's possible there are.

Well mine, certainly did. Maybe it varies from authority?

For one thing, a couple in their 30s one of whom has a successful track record with adolescents as a teacher, could be seen as a much better option to manage a teenage boy who may have very challenging behaviour than an elderly single woman who has previously really struggled to raise a teenager.

The social workers would have been considering the long term.
The idea that they thought gay men were a cool choice sounds ridiculous to me.

It isn't at all, and your constant bad faith posting on this is getting incredibly tiresome.

Yes, we know your main aim here is to attempt to prove that I and others who have very good reason to care about safeguarding and basic child protection are wrong, "lunatic fringe" and all the other childish insults you have chosen to throw at us, and believe the wishes of adopting adults take precedence over child safety needs, which you seem to have assumed we know nothing about either, including silly claims about things we are supposed to have said on other threads.

You vastly underestimate both my and others' experience and knowledge, btw. I and other adults know you're wrong, people who work in child protection and child abuse research know you're wrong, I'd be pretty certain further inquiries into Preston's murder would show you're wrong, most foster carers I know (and there are several, including my own family) know you're wrong. I'm not going to continue arguing with you. There really is little point in engaging with your posts. They are not remotely constructive.

As I said, safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. You don't want it to be yours and want to continue to castigate people who prioitise it in favour of adult wishes? It's really up to you. But I find it unnecessary and unhelpful.

People differing in their view isn’t posting in bad faith.

That's nice, dear.

they actually didn't upload a picture of Preston to the site, just his story. His foster mum was aware that he was a very cute baby and wanted people to be drawn to his story rather than his looks.

Ah, interesting. Where did you see that?

I just posted on another thread (photo under review) a screenshot of the agency’s website which placed Preston -Adoption Now - where they mention working with an LGBTQ+ organisation; this needs some investigation in case bad actors are using this route to access children under the guise of inclusivity and acceptance.

Anyone can go to any adoption agency and face exactly the same process as everyone else.

In both cases of adopted babies being murdered by their gay male parents, the main perpetrator has been a stay at home dad.

In adoption they require one person to be at home full-time for the first year.

They also don't encourage you to introduce them to wider family, friends etc for a while.

So many mums only get through maternity leave through seeing family, friends, and making new mum connections, through antenatal classes and baby groups.

It seems like an incredibly isolating thing to ask people to do when usually people use this time to build a new parenting network.

I wonder if men, as a result of male socialisation (they're not exactly primed to be self-sacrificing and have higher levels of aggression) sometimes cope with this scenario quite badly.

I wonder if we will see similar cases with surrogacy. While one man is the biological father, the other isn't. And they have very little oversight.

I have googled and cannot find any info on the family finding process or what they put on link maker. Do you have a link?

it's here:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/twisted-instagram-ready-life-one-34126090