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

Child murderers don’t do well in prison.

Word will get out and retribution will be served!

Hopefully every single day of their miserable lives until the END.

I don't think gay PEOPLE adopting should be stopped.

Imo the problem is men. I don't think all-male adoption should be allowed : meaning I'd exclude both gay men, and also single men

I think the question is men specifically. A single male paedophile could also prey on children this way. A woman being present does dilute the danger at least somewhat. Ban adoption by men alone maybe- whether gay male couples or single men.

Thank you for this post, it's valuable to get insight from someone with experience of adopting.

Re this comment, can I ask: '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.'

• is this necessarily a bad thing when it comes to lesbian couples? I feel personally that the issue is coming from lumping together lesbian and gay couples in one category by adoption services. 2 men adopting (or a lone man for that matter) pose an inflated risk of sexual abuse which 2 women don't.

I assume by 'risk they are willing to take' you mean risk of SA?

Adoption policies re male adoption definitely sound dangerous...

I've been reading more, the DM has an interviewup with the maternal grandma and quotes from the birth mother. I just fail to see how pushing for adoption was in any way in Prestons best interests - he was thriving with the experienced foster carer and then very quickly introduced to these men who lived in a different city and handed over to them! With little contact with the foster mother who had basically raised him along with frequently visiting his sibling, grandma and birth mother. Could he not have stayed with the foster parents longer? The council have stated they didn't have any evidence of the maternal grandma formally asking for more time until she could take Preston in.. personally thinking the SS didn't note down that request from her and as she was so poorly from chemo she didn't push it as she probably was happy Preston was with the experienced foster carers. It sounds like they were all against him going for adoption. Again, the adoption is best mentality. I don't disagree that it probably usually is best - but clearly not in this case, with him having a birth family and a sibling who were willing to take him in. Don't SS usually want to keep bio families together- isn't that what we hear?

I've thankfully never had to raise concerns to SS about children so far in my work with teens and tweens or personal life. But I have experience with shitty NHS professionals being negligent to my elderly parent - their tune changes when you are pushy and follow up on things and ask for your concerns and opinions to be recorded in the notes and with other professionals. So my learning from poor Preston is to act the same if I have concerns about a child - keep following up and re raising concerns and CCing in police, higher levels of management in SS if I still think things aren't being put into place properly.

You mean articles like this?

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15902423/Russian-spy-orchestrated-arson-attacks-PM-started-wild-conspiracy-theory-revenge-two-Ukrainian-rent-boys.html

By the way, I intensely dislike the minimisation of the appalling scourge of human sex trafficking to terms such as ‘rent boys’ and ‘bum boys’.

No-one knows what agency these boys and young men really have, what threats they are under, and what harm they or their families are suffering.

I’ve just read the Guardian article.

This really jumped out at me: ‘Varley babysat nieces, nephews and the children of friends many times’.

You have to hope that the proper investigations have already been undertaken or at least begun to make sure those children now have any necessary support in place. In fact whole families may need it.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/15/jamie-varley-abused-murdered-baby-son-preston-davey

It’s well worth listening to The Trial podcast, particularly the most recent episodes from last week and this. Much of the process, including the training, seems to have taken place online. I don’t see how this could possibly be as effective as it would be in person and in their home.

Rest in Peace dear Preston.

Indeed you're right. Social Services work on the basis that it's poor and working class people who abuse children and claim that this is evidence based: same as claiming those who abuse become abusers. Of course they're very selective in which research they use for these claims and a lot of research is carried out with convicted offenders who of course tell lies and say what researchers want to hear. Apart from not protecting children of middle class and/or wealthy parents this is incredibly stigmatising to poor parents who often do the best they can. It's lazy thinking to claim it's only financially poor parents who injure and kill children and avoid looking at painful issues such as the intense pleasure some adults get from torturing children and that they choose to do it.

A child protection social worker said of my family: "If that had been a working class family we'd have been in there years ago". This abuse was violence, sexual abuse, neglect and psychological cruelty, some of it happened in front of others. We lived in a cold, dirty council house but my father had a good job and my parents were well-spoken and we went to good schools via the 11 plus.

Someone wrote an excellent comment here about how middle class abusers are treated differently and more leniently by social workers and I will link to it when I can.

It's apparent now that:

a) This baby should NEVER have been given to these men. Everything was in place for the foster mum and then the grandmother to take the child on, but social workers intervened as they had their own agenda

and

b) There were numerous and overwhelming signs that abuse had started immediately. But again the social workers opted not to do anything about it.

It looks very much like they had an agenda that two gay men must be allowed to have a baby and if any evidence suggests otherwise then that's homophobic.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15894639/Furious-grandmother-baby-murdered-abused-teacher-calls-social-workers-sacked-missed-chances-save-infant.html

Adoption were there are no women involved should not be allowed. Before anyone jumps on me with "women abuse as well", I know they do, but not on the same scale as men.

@Keroppi

"I'd also be wondering how these two met,"

Abusers are very good at finding partners who will do nothing whilst they torture a child and/or who will get vicarious pleasure from watching the cruelty. The more dominant, often active abuser/killer will go looking for a partner who will not challenge them and may be submissive. The prospective partner may also be very emotionally needy, dependent and someone who puts their own needs over those of a defenceless child.

Or, as you say, if both partners are abusers there are lots of ways of finding each other.

I couldn't. That was headline news at 6 o'clock last night.

This is the MN comment I mentioned up thread. It's in response to a post about a Guardian article in which a woman stays with her husband who is guilty of watching child porn. The woman works in safeguarding, the family's middle class and social workers are apparently okay with this. There is some relevance to this case I think.

MargotEmin · 01/08/2024 10:48

I applaud the Guardian for shining a light on how nicely spoken, polite middle class families get away with stuff that other families wouldn't.

I work in the field and have seen first hand how parents like these minimise and intellectualise online abuse. They know to be nice and compliant with professionals, professionals who let out a sigh of relief because it's so much nicer working with softly spoken Matthew than it is working with that yob over there who will chuck a chair across the room if you say something he doesn't like.

They exploit the class-based affinity bias they have with the workers around them, convincing the workers that they're just like them really. They will use well meaning research papers and data about the importance of support networks to recidivism rates so that they can all pretend the mother, grandparents, employer etc are doing something honourable when all they are doing is sweeping child abuse under the carpet and maintaining their nice middle class status quo with impunity.

Yes I agree. I don't believe any household without a female as part of a longstanding partnership should be able to adopt children who are non verbal as their first child. I'm sorry for all the decent gay guys out there who want a baby instead of a 3 or 4 year old, but it's simply too risky.

Reading about the grandmother/foster situation today, it screams off the page that that baby died, and died horribly after months of abuse, because of wokery that favoured a gay couple over him being with his sister and his Granny.

I'm still gobsmacked how the BBC didn't think this was headline news for last night's 6 o'clock bulletin.

@Fillies4DeclanRice but they had been approved for adoption. If Preston hadn’t been given to them they would have had another child. There was nothing to indicate that this would happen.

As for men being permitted to adopt, I don’t know how I feel about that. I understand why people say it but I also think two horrendous cases aren’t indicative of a deep rooted problem that justifies an overall ban, especially when a woman was convicted of the same crime in a similar timeframe.

Perhaps there is an argument for children over a certain age. I must admit I don’t feel girls should be placed with a single man or two men, but then I don’t feel the same about boys placed with women. It’s a tough one.

Something I’ve woken up horrified by today, is the lack of self management of these men. I mean, 4 months. They didn’t manage to keep it under any kind of threshold so they wouldn’t get caught, they lost all continence in just 100 days. Gratification above all else including the survival of that poor little boy and their own safety.

Sick, sick animals.

May poor little Preston rest in peace. May the bastard murderer suffer nothing but pain for the rest of his life....and may the people who should have protected little Preston hang their heads in shame.

I can't read that paywalled article, but I don't think "two gay dads must be able to adopt" WAS the "agenda" or motive for social services taking Preston away from foster care initially and into the adoption process so that isn't actually clear from the evidence at all. As has been posted earlier in the thread, that isn't how adoption orders work I do think "it is better for a child to be adopted" (by anyone) was the agenda at that point though.

It's only once the adoption order is made that they start matching with potential adopters, not the other way round .Obviously a massive mistake here in who was chosen at that point, we don't know why these two horrors were among the only 2% deemed suitable to adopt a baby, and yes, there could be an "agenda" at that point around who they chose and why , but don't yet know for sure what the thinking was. Them being in the picture wouldn't have pre-empted the decision to put Preston forward for adoption though; they weren't in the picture at all then.

I still think it seems horribly rushed from once they were approved for adoption to placing them with a baby they'd only met a month or so before though. And then basically left to it, it seems.

I 100% agree with you.

Power does attract people to social work as it does in similar jobs like mental health services. They have massive unaccountable power over totally powerless people. I write as someone who was an abused child - social services took the abusers' side and wouldn't even hear me out. That went on for years. Later, the cover-up was something to behold.

Like some others here, I have concerns about some adoptions and think it isn't always the best consequence. I know quite a lot of adults who were adopted and their lives have been terrible and there are those 'looked after' children I met in the mental health system who died very young.

I know a woman who was taken from her allegedly neglectful mother at the age of 2 and put in a children's home where she was sexually abused by a teenage boy when she was 6 and saw staff violently assault children. As a teenager in the home she was abducted by some men, taken to a house and abused for days. Men like this prey on children in children's homes and watch them in preparation of their crimes. My friend was fond of her mother and bonded with her and misses her.

And @hihelenhi
No, opportunities to adopt newborns are scarce because the newborns aren't available to adopt- care proceedings take 6 months minimum before a Placement Order is made.
They are telling prospective adopters not to expect to get a newborn.

6 months of care proceedings, the matching process, adoption panel and transitions, another 10 weeks min with adopters before they can apply to adopt the child, the second court process for the adoption (which parents can contest) - very unusual to get all that done in under a year.

Very occasionally a baby will be placed straight from hospital on foster to adopt regs but that is not the norm. There are not enough of those type of placements either.

I agree. Some people adopt a baby or have their own biological child precisely, and only, because they want to abuse them.

I'm not sure what I feel about women having to be in a family who adopt. My mother was a child abuser who abused 3 of her 4 children and I've sought out lots of information about female abusers and fellow survivors. I am talking about sex abuse, violence, mental cruelty and neglect here.

It's often said that women don't abuse alone and always have male abusers they offend along with or have male partners who are facilitators. That's certainly true of my mother and other women abusers I am aware of. However, the woman deputy warden of a psychiatric hostel I was in abused some of the kids and she operated alone. It's hard to get good data.

Do women act as a deterrent to male abusers in a family or will they inform on their male partner or father, son etc to the police? Difficult to know but there's a lot of denial in families and marriages and some women don't want to accept that their partner or relative is cruel to a child.