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 was always under the impression (I may be wrong, but recall that being the experience of friends of mine who'd adopted) that babies of Preston's age were in the highest demand from potential adopters, with older male children the hardest to place. Is there a shortage of adoptive parents for babies or is it more for older kids?

It makes sense if you think a baby is a sex toy, which at least one of these men did.

Similar to the case in Keighley (Star Hobson) involving two women in a same sex relationship. Concerns were repeatedly raised by the grandparents but they were accused of homophobia and their worries were dismissed by social workers.

I read recently that prisoners in cat A prisons have a list of high profile killers that they want rid of.
Ian Huntley, Ian Watkins and Kyle Bevan have already been offed. Wayne Cousens is rumoured to be on it.
I reckon these two pieces of sub human detritus will be joining the list soon

When I first read about baby Preston, I couldn’t stop crying. That poor, innocent child—the horror he had to endure during his life is unimaginable.

I watched a video of Varley’s reaction upon hearing about Preston’s death (in the hospital). During his fake hysterical breakdown, he shouted, “I’m going to hell!”

He clearly knew that the depraved crimes he committed against that child would come to light. He knew he would go to prison and he knew what awaited him there.

Hell.

Whilst men pose a greater risk to children than women do, you are correct in asserting that all suspicions should be followed up and there should be no one deemed above suspicion.

There are nowhere near enough adopters at the moment. Yes, there are more adopters wanting babies than older children, but there are not as many adopters as children in nearly every category (e.g. baby, older child, siblings).

And that's why nothing changes.

Yet there is case after case of abusive men being given access to children even though it is accepted they abused the children's mothers. These are the cases that are undeniable, because the men went on to kill the children. There are hundreds more children being abused, who the public will never know about.

https://www.channel4.com/news/the-19-children-killed-by-a-domestic-abuse-perpetrator

Extract:Twelve-year-old Jack Sykes and his nine-year-old brother Paul did not want contact with their father. He’d been violent and abusive to their mum, Claire.He’d humiliated and frightened them.But the family courts decided they had to have contact with him after their parents separated and on one of the court ordered visits, he killed them both.[...]
Claire Throssell says she laid out exactly the risk her ex posed, a man she says couldn’t even contain his anger during the hearing. The court gave him access to the boys anyway.

“I’d written in my court application that he was capable of killing the boys. He’d already stated that he understood why fathers killed the children. He had already been violent to me. He’d been abusive to the boys. I knew the boys weren’t safe with him. They knew they weren’t safe with him. He’d gone for me outside court. He couldn’t contain his temper within the courtroom, he was told to be quiet, and the judge allowed him to still shout at me across this room.”

https://womensaid.org.uk/nineteen-more-child-homicides/

As I said, the only thing that is ever going to stop this is the fear of legal action from survivors.

If I make the wrong decision at work and someone suffers harm or dies as a result as a result of me ignoring information that was right in front of me, I have the potential to be criminally prosecuted as well as sued, and I'm paid less than a social worker or a judge.

I know she wanted to see Preston, to see how he was getting on I suppose, and she felt they were blocking any contact, which worried her.

I do think that keeping a child out of sight of anyone who might report problems is a red flag. There have been so many cases where that's happened with a child who was being hurt by its carers - it seems like that is a huge factor in the abuse continuing and getting worse.

@hihelenhi sorry, meant to include you. This is the sort of comments I was referring to.

Not enough people wanting to adopt babies? I've always heard the opposite: that there are almost no babies available for lots of would-be adopters, and that that's why a whole traffic developed in foreign adoptions.

But maybe the demand for adopted babies has collapsed with the availability of IVF and surrogates?

Ah, I see. Okay. No, I don't agree with that in the sense of he box-ticking because "woke"as the reason for his being adopted in the first place, although I'd assumed it was more about adoption generally being seen as the most desired outcome rather than to fulfil some kind of quota.

I think most were talking more about the adoption placement itself though and what factors influence whether or not someone is deemed a 'good match' for the needs of the child and if that process is anywhere near good enough.

These two men clearly had very little experience of young babies in reality, the odd comments JV was making about him being "dead meat" and his rage over sleeping stuff was within a matter of days arriving I think, with the neighbour hearing Preston screaming. And nobody is keeping a closer eye on them all in this brand new placement?

I'd expect new adoptive parents to find his sleeping problems hard whoever they were, but the foster mother had made sure she on hand to help smooth the process as I'd expect (she was very experienced with fostering, after all). She was someone who would have known all about how to soothe Preston and they excluded her immediately instead of asking for her help and started 'punishing' Preston instead, within a matter of days.

I am sorry but you are mistaken. This is what one adoption agency has on it's website

To understand the scarcity of newborn adoption opportunities, it is essential to examine the statistics. In the past year, only 96 children under the age of one were adopted in the UK. This figure makes up just approximately 2% of the total number of over 4,000 adoptions that took place. It is worth noting that this number includes both international adoption and surrogacy arrangements, of which the split remains unknown but is likely to be a significant proportion within the 96 children.

Yes, that's kind of what I'd always thought. So why would you place a young nonverbal baby like Preston in the care of two very inexperienced men? Did they give THAT good an account of themselves, really? JMF claimed in his testimony (yes, I know quite a bit of it is trying to blame everyone but themselves) that their adoption "training" was mostly online, and didn't mention safeguarding (obvious bollocks, esp as JV was meant to know all about it). But how true is that? What is the 'training' once the supposedly extensive vetting is completed?

Nobody expressing anger is going to go after these filthy specimens with a pitchfork.

But there is such a thing as righteous anger and there is no harm at all in expressing it. There is, however, harm in pleading the case that these two were once babies, etc.

As you say, there is a justice system to deal with them. It's not a mercy system that ignores the horrific crimes the convicted criminals committed.

Sentimentality about criminals is a waste of energy and offensive to the victims.

Agree 100% A book or a journalist.

Yes, the BBC say JV was commenting on Preston not sleeping within days of the boy being placed at their house.

After undergoing an assessment and familiarisation process Preston was adopted and began living with the defendants on 1 April 2023.

But just days later Varley, who took a year off work as head of year at high school to adopt a child, confessed he was struggling with a lack of sleep due to the baby constantly waking in the night, a jury heard.

On 6 April, he texted his sister, a baby sleep trainer: "He's dead meat today. Didn't sleep last night after 11.30. Up every, one and a half hours."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyv2p8ldzlyo

I mean, you'd kind of expect that of a baby wouldn't you? They know he has acid reflux, every adult knows that babies struggle to sleep, they know from the foster mother what his patterns are and he's in a new and unfamiliar place. And yes, it's going to be a shock to the system whoever you are.

But "dead meat"? And she didn't notice anything wrong with that phrasing? My alarm bells would be going off if it was any friend or family of mine, and I'm sure my friends and family would if I came out with something like that in that circumstance. I'd be instantly worried by that phrase, no matter how 'dark' our humour normally was. Wouldn't you? Sure, I might express that it was pissing me off or I was so tired or whateve, expressing normal frustrations, but "he's dead meat today?"

And nobody's flagging within days of them being placed that this guy doesn't know how to look after a baby AT ALL ,is already expressing odd sentiment and he's going to be doing it by himself when JMF goes back to work? And yet somehow they're in the 2% of adopters who get to adopt a child under one? Really? Something seems very off here.

But "dead meat"? And she didn't notice anything wrong with that phrasing? My alarm bells would be going off if it was any friend or family of mine, and I'm sure my friends and family would if I came out with something like that in that circumstance. I'd be instantly worried by that phrase, no matter how 'dark' our humour normally was. Wouldn't you?

There seems to be quite a few people who let Preston down by not questioning JV.

When he wasn't sexually abusing him, he was treating him cruelly in other ways. For example, spinning him aggressively in a teacup ride at a park, so hard that Preston's eyes were rolling and unable to focus, pushing him on a very rocky path in his pram shaking him viciously. He filmed and shared such videos with others and no one asked him what the fuck he thought he was playing at being so aggressive with a small baby.

He told a colleague that he was having dark thoughts about hurting or drowning Preston, but the colleague didnt report that until Preston had been murdered.

It's infuriating.

He seems to have been very open via messaging apps about exactly how difficult he was finding it to friends and family.

I understand no-one wants to even consider the thought that their son or brother or friend could be a paedophile, but were no professionals involved? From those texts alone, this was a case of shaken baby syndrome waiting to happen.

Viewing this through as benign and naive lens as possible, you have two sleep-deprived men who seem totally unprepared for sleeplessness and these men are caring for a baby they factually have not had the time to bond with. This baby isn't sleeping well, because he is distressed about a new environment, so there is no end date on when the lack of sleep for the adoptive parents might end. This really should have had someone thinking about risk factors for shaken baby syndrome.

This syndrome is primarily seen in children younger than age two, with the majority of cases occurring before the baby’s first birthday. The average victim is between three and eight months old. However, children up to age four have been victims of this abuse. The perpetrator of the abuse is most often the father, boyfriend of the mother, female babysitter or the mother.

www.aans.org/patients/conditions-treatments/shaken-baby-syndrome/

Yes, exactly. This was in the first few DAYS! Precisely when the professionals should have been on it.

And let's not forget, Preston had been cleared to live with them, but was not yet officially adopted. They were still in what should have been a monitoring period. They were approved after their 'training' in the Jan, only met him in I think the February,just over a month later he was living with two guys one of whom, the main carer, has made it very clear they didn't know how to look after him and nobody is stepping in.

The abuse and negative talk starts within days, they're doing things like having baths with Preston (a BIG no no, but not sure if any pics of that was sent to anyone but JMF), and they cut out the foster mother who could have helped with the transition super quickly, which she was rightly suspicious of. And nobody does anything, notices any of this, takes her fears seriously or takes a closer look or thinks "there's a massive problem here we need to flag ASAP?" Remember, they don't need proof to do that, only concern and curiosity.

Three months later, JV had r*ped and killed that baby boy after four months of tormenting him, with JMF pretending not to be complicit or "too busy at work" to notice anything? This baby's been to hospital several times during the placement but never before and nobody thinks "hmm, this is a child whose just been placed with these two and it's been quite frequent, best flag it"? (I think someone from the hospital did on the elbow injury).

It's insane, utterly insane, and throughout the trial, more and more warning signs turned out to have been ignored. This is how shaken baby syndrome happens, but no-one seems to have known. Had they never heard of it?
JV's abuse of Preston was sexually-motivated but it was also motivated by anger. He wasn't hiding it at all.

And why were they allowed to cut out the foster mother? How was this child-centred?

I wonder if people around JV were assuming he should be treated like a new mother with post-natal depression. In reality, the risk profile is completely different.

Reading that their home was often described as a ‘show house’ knocked me sick too - cold and sterile no doubt - controlling and soulless.
In God’s safekeeping beautiful baby Preston and bless all children living in hell behind closed doors 🙏🏼

As you say, even with the most benevolent mindset, if I believed the best of everyone and wasn't the hardened cynic that I am, if someone told you or made it clear to you with oddly worded negative language they were really badly struggling to the point of anger within the first few days of a young baby being placed with them, I think most people would be concerned about that child's welfare.

Sure, you'd probably not be thinking "and now obviously they're going to sexually abuse that baby" in those first few days but you'd likely be concerned enough that the baby's welfare may be at risk from something like shaken baby if someone who expressed they're feeling like that was to snap, yes. This isn't just "I'm really knackered". I think a lot of 'care' seems to have been centred more on JMF and JV themselves, not on Preston's needs.

I think JV had done his research and had indeed planned to pull out all the "PND" stops. He seems to have seeded a lot of false narratives ahead of what he actually did so he could explain them later. No doubt thought he was very clever, the vile little shit.

Op must be a troll...surely???