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

I do not agree with the idea that gay men should not adopt but i do agree it should be discussed

I’m sure that there was a comment at some point from the neighbours that they had never hear a baby cry so much.

Oh dear 😔.

I would have hated being adopted by two men and having two fathers. Sorry but it's true. I have no other words for the most evil acts, in fact I haven't really read the details. Remember evil walks amongst us every day. Be careful who you leave your kids with.

I pray that neither of them are able to kill themselves whilst inside. They truly deserve to be terrified for the rest of their lives.

What you write is horrifying. I'm afraid you really have to "write a book". Or at least get a reporter to do it, or somehow find a way to make what you know, known to everyone who should be made aware.

The 12 year old 'consenting to rape by stepfather.

The two year old with anal warts.

Children must be protected not only from the abusers but from the enablers. By enabling, they are law-breaking, colluding.

Your post indicates they are apparently a united mass of criminally negligent, child-failing, professionals. All are taking salaries to protect, yet instead destroying.

Shielding children from perverts and murderes cannot be left to people like the nursery, and you, and to "luckily" having extremely good lawyers.

Each individual case easily explained yes. But 3 separate visits to the exact same hospital absolutely and bruising each time not. There's no excuse for it other than the obvious.

Cases like this make me even more concerned about surrogacy because there is zero safeguarding and monitoring of those babies.

This case is horrifying. I know there are people baying for blood and to a certain extent I can understand that. But I hope that (in Preston’s name) this case is the catalyst for change.

• how and why were the hospital admissions not an automatic trigger for a full and thorough investigation why Preston wasn’t removed from his adoptive parents care?
• why did the full adoption process not uncover more about the behaviour of these two individuals? I do not believe for a second that there wasn’t past behaviour to be found.
• Why were social services so content to just overlook clear red flags? is this another example (following Henry Nowak) of political correctness run amok?
• Baby Preston was adopted to a male only household. Why did social services fail to consider this as an increased risk factor?
• why were the concerns raised by foster carers dismissed so freely? Even with the other pieces of information?

To be honest I’m in disbelief that the system is so inadequate. We have case after case of children being failed and of red flags being will-fully ignored. This is the worst example of human behaviour with gravest of all outcomes - how on earth was it missed?

I do think that the fact that these two deplorable humans were gay was a factor in the neglectful lack of intervention- and that behaviour must be rooted out and stamped on.

This is one of the worst things I have ever read. That poor, poor baby. How did no one protect him.

I don't know if this has been asked already but I want to know why the BBC did not carry this verdict on the six o'clock news and it was left to be covered in Northwest Tonight.

How the devil is this not main news, that a gay paedophile and his gay partner allowed/caused a baby to choke to death on a penis?

I can't help wondering if BBC wokeness doesn't want to question whether any non verbal child should be adopted by gay men.

I'm not against gay men adopting children but this case raises huge questions about children who can't speak.

I hope that the main abuser lives a long time having a terrible time in prison before somebody manages to kill him slowly in as painful a way a they can devise.

BBC wokeness !

What BBC news?

It wasn't covered at all on the six o'clock news tonight, I waited for it.

It was covered in the regional news Northwest Tonight and I want to know who made the decision that the choking of a baby by a paedophile sex abuser wasn't worth of the main news.

I have listened to The Trial podcast about this case. The stay at home prospective father complained of many things that show he was unsuitable. He complained of being woken so many times at night, seemingly unaware this is normal, he blamed the foster carer for pandering to him. He called the baby accident prone when he could only just walk which says to me he had no understanding of how babies develop. He made the excuse of leaving him in the bath unattended for several minutes which I think even using that excuse shows he was not suitable and their unpreparedness should have been red flags. I can’t help think that women generally have a proper idea of what it’s like to look after a baby. They should not have been approved.

Sadly, I can easily, off the top of my head and without having to think too hard, name a dozen or more others still alive in prison. And several more who have since been released.

I can assure you that most adoptions in the UK involve a willingness on the part of the adopters to have some kind of ongoing contact with birth family and assurances that the child will be given age appropriate information about their birth family. Social workers prepare life story books, which adopters are expected to share regularly. They also write later life letters, to be handed over when the yp is mid to late teens. No one gets to sail off with a blank slate baby.

In fact, attachment problems are not always the biggest problems in adoption these days. Foetal alcohol syndrome is a significant issue. Drug withdrawal. Poor intra uterine care and stress.

I suspect that social services knew that Preston could have a very rocky road ahead. They may well have felt that two dads would be a good match - i am an adopter myself and I know that sometimes two males can seem like a good option for a child who may turn out to be challenging.

One of the men was a safeguarding head of year. On paper it would have looked like a great match.

Children removed at birth from their birth mothers are definitely not blank slates and can require a lot of support. Two men are seen as possibly more able to cope further down the line.

I do know some gay adopters. They all have really challenging children. I don't personally know any who have a baby. I see videos from the gay couple Matthew and Ryan and their little boy and it's all about Disney and trips to the beach and I do wonder how easy things will be for them going forward. I do believe that gay men are first in line for the kids from the most challenging backgrounds.

Another reason social workers like males as parents is the lack of an adoptive mother, who can be a real red flag for adopted children for very complex reasons. Birth dads and adoptive dads are less of an issue for some reason.

Finally, there is a policy in many social services rdeps to be as inclusive as possible when it comes to finding adopters - it has certainly changed since I adopted in 2001. Then, the focus was on the traditional family set up, with unusual set ups only being considered for the most hard to place children. Now they place babies in these families - it's a risk they are willing to take for their EDI stats.

I do know someone whose husband turned out to be in a paedophile gang. He had played a very long game to get his hands on two young children. Luckily he was caught in a police operation looking at users of a website - just a few weeks after placement. He was a supposed pillar of society. His wife had no idea.

Of the three A&E admissions, two were for illness and only one for injury. Visiting A&E for out of hours illness is normal and if anything bringing Preston to hospital when unwell is a good sign of taking his health seriously and not hiding him away. Bruising was spotted on his forehead which is a normal place for a mobile baby to get a bruise. I’m not sure what bruises he had at other admissions, but my experience of children’s A&E is very busy to absolute bedlam. I’m sure that lack of professional curiosity will be mentioned in the report, but with the NHS stretched as far is it is, staff are firefighting and sadly don’t always have time to linger and ask questions they might in a better equipped system. The doctor said that the broken arm was a normal injury, which is alarming given the evidence by the prosecution’s doctors said the absolute opposite.

I’m not sure what the adoption process could uncover that it didn’t. People on the other thread suggested device checks, but I’m sure the police checked thoroughly through every device they could find over a two year investigation and didn’t uncover any CSAM, so that wouldn’t have helped. The adoption process was rigorous and it described as such by everyone involved. Short of mind reading, if JV was lying to them about why he wanted to adopt how could they know.

I usually follow most news articles, even the tragic stories, but in this case I can't bear to read any articles on it. I don't think my mind or heart could take it. So awful.

These accounts i gave were over 10 years ago and nothing but nothing changes.

Since that job i did some work on safeguarding boards, what a bunch of high level fuckwittery that was. It was all to politically motivated, and job protection.

Serious case reviews were very thorough and usually got to the nub of the failures, and “lessons were learnt” - my arse.

the problem is oft that those with some flipping morals that did not value popularity stakes, diplomacy and funding security, would challenge, but were deemed, well difficult. (People like me)

The only thing that will ever stop these safeguarding failures is if survivors of child abuse get the right to sue social workers, CAFCASS workers and family court judges who signed off on their abusers having access.

Preston is dead due to the abuse, so even if my pipedream came true, he wouldn't get justice either.

And one was a trained teacher and head of year.

Three hospital admissions in such quick succession? A broken arm and bruising? All within maybe initial months?
I have two kids and in 8 years I’ve visited the hospital twice.
A foster mother who had reported concerns that the adoptive parents were hiding baby Preston when she came to visit.
A post mortem that showed over 50 injuries?

Are you honestly suggesting that the overall picture didn’t show a pattern that required thorough investigation. And that had that investigation happened this could have been prevented? Because I don’t buy it at all.

What prison have they been sent to?

I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary to be honest. When you call 111 with babies and very young children they do often advise A & E visits to be precautionary. I ended up going twice with my son who was aged between 9-14 months at the time with an extremely high fever and on another horrible occasion he grabbed my hair straighteners which had just switched off (so still very hot) and burned his poor hands so that does sound normal to me, especially in (what was presumed to be) fairly anxious new parents.

I wonder if a woman giving up a baby for adoption has the right to refuse gay men as prospective parents ( or people with any other characteristics she’d prefer not to have imposed on her child’s upbringing if she thought it would be deleterious for the baby)?