The murder of a toddler and the web of lies spun to deceive

An inquiry will mean those who were meant to protect Preston Davey will have to answer how he was so badly failed

Preston Davey

The death of a 13-month-old boy in Lancashire is shocking. The lies and manipulation that took place to try and hide the abuse are more shocking still.

Preston Davey, who was in the process of being adopted, was killed and abused by those who claimed to love him and wanted to care for him.

In the wake of Baby P in 2007, wide-ranging changes were made following a serious case review. We must see the same in Preston’s memory.

A vigil held in Lancashire this week, on what would have been little Preston’s fourth birthday, drew people from across the North West to pay their respects. People are rightly outraged by what took place to a poor, defenceless, baby, and the public will expect action and answers to ensure this kind of abuse doesn’t happen again.

Harrowing statements from Preston’s foster parents, who he had left four months before his adoption, as well as from the toddler’s birth mother and father were read in court ahead of the sentencing.

Paul Cooper, who fostered Preston from when he was just a few days old up to 10 months, said: “Even to this day I tell myself this is not real or possible, then reality hits and it breaks me again to think about the suffering Preston went through.

“I never thought I was an emotional person, however, these past three years I haven’t gone through a week without crying, sometimes it might not be anything to do with Preston or this case however, I just become upset over little things.”

Davey’s killers were sentenced today at Preston Crown Court. Jamie Varley, 37, has been given a whole life order for the murder and sexual abuse of Preston Davey. He will never be released from prison.

His co-accused John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for allowing the death of a child.

Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley

An inquiry will be held and involves councils, hospitals, police, adoption agencies, employers and more. Each will have to go over in detail and reflect on the simple question - could they have prevented this? What questions were not asked at the time to reveal the pattern of evil misleading that was ongoing?

One of the organisations to face additional scrutiny is Blackpool Victoria Hospital, as our sister title The Blackpool Lead reported in March has been facing questions about safety and the culture within the hospital in recent years particularly following the death of baby Olivia-Rose who died at home aged just 17 days old in October last year.

Preston Davey was admitted on 25 May, 30 June and 6 July 2023. He died on 27 July.

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel De Souza told the BBC this morning: “We know that very early into his adoption, and he was only in adoption with his family for four months, very early, he was taken to hospital with bruises.

“The consultant dismissed it. Did they dismiss it because it was a teacher adopter? Did that evil abuser hoodwink people under that professional guise?”

She was speaking ahead of the sentencing of Varley, who was part of the safeguarding team at the high school in Blackpool where he worked.

While Blackpool Council was not overseeing the adoption - as Davey had been in care in Oldham and his adoption was being managed by agency Adoption Now, which works across Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside - it puts the safety of children and vulnerable young people in Blackpool and the North West back into focus too and questions whether those organisations which should be raising issues are doing so. And if they do, where do those issues go to be acted on?

The children’s commissioner said: “The social worker saw him 20 days before he died, I want to know whether the correct level of professional curiosity was there.

“I have huge numbers of questions, and I’m not going to let go until I have the answers. I’ve been waiting for this Child Protection Authority to be set up. There’s been a consultation, it’s gone too slow.”

Our full report below published this week in The Blackpool Lead outlines what the inquiry will cover, and especially what it will mean for Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Please be warned, this is difficult reading, but it is important Preston’s story is heard.

Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s care of Preston Davey to be investigated after ‘pure evil’ murder

Preston Davey

An inquiry into the short life of Preston Davey, who was sexually abused by his new adoptive fathers before being murdered by one of them, will look into his three admissions to Blackpool Victoria Hospital in the run up to his death.

The baby boy was treated at the Vic, in Whinney Heys Road, three times in the four months before his death in 2023, and was later found to have suffered around 40 deliberate injuries, including to his mouth, throat and bottom.

The child protection review can get under way now that South Shore Academy textiles teacher Jamie Varley, 37, and his ex-public schoolboy and financial sales manager boyfriend John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, both then of Staining Road in Staining and later of Chandlers Way, Grimsargh, have been convicted.

The pair’s trial heard some of the details - but now the review, which was suspended while court proceedings were ongoing, will officially examine every area of Preston’s life, from his birth in prison on June 16 2022 and placement in foster care at five days old, to his adoption by Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley on April 1 2023 and subsequent treatment by the NHS in Blackpool and social services in Oldham.

It will delve into the facts and aim to provide answers to some tough questions relating to the 13-month-old’s life and death.

An element of the review is expected to specifically look at whether any chances were missed during the care of Preston before his death.

Varley denied murder, manslaughter, and multiple child sex offences, including making indecent images of Preston, who he had renamed Elijah, and abusing him.

After an eight-week trial, he was found guilty of murder, two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault of a child, 13 counts of taking indecent photos or videos of a child, one of distributing an indecent photo of a child, to his co-accused, and one of making an indecent photo.

McGowan-Fazakerley denied allowing the death of a child, two counts of child cruelty and sexual assault of a child. He was found guilty.

The couple’s trial, which exposed one of Britain’s worst child abuse cases and sickened the nation, was told about Preston’s hospital visits before his murder.

The first, on May 25, saw Varley rush into A&E with the boy at about 11.10am, telling paediatric sister Zoe Hellowell: “He’s not breathing.”

Hellowell said Preston was breathing, albeit ineffectively, but unresponsive and floppy. He also had bruises on either side of his forehead.

Nurse Holly Edwards raised the alarm and police were contacted, with a medical report describing the injuries as “unexplained” and “inconsistent with a version of events given…”

At the time, Preston was diagnosed with a chest infection and recovered within four hours, though an expert witness for the prosecution threw the diagnosis into doubt - suggesting another cause for the boy’s symptoms.

In a statement read before the jury, Dr Mark Rosenthal, consultant respiratory paediatrician, said the condition Preston was in on the day of his hospital visit pointed towards a “non-accidental hypoxic event”, with causes including suffocation, aspiration or bleeding into the lungs.

He said Preston’s history of arriving at the hospital very unwell, confused and acidotic - when there is too much acid in the blood - along with having a seizure and then recovering could never be down to an infection. No police action followed.

A second hospital visit happened the next month, on June 30, when Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley reported Preston had a rash, diarrhoea, vomiting and a fever.

Medics noted bruising to the boy’s head but staff were shown a video of the child pulling a toy box on to himself while playing.

“You lot are going to think we have been abusing him or something,” Varley said.

The video had been filmed 12 days prior, it was later discovered, and so unlikely to be relevant.

Preston arrived at the hospital for a third time in July after breaking his elbow.

Varley told medics he was lowering Preston into his cot when the baby jumped or kicked his feet and he heard a pop or click in his arm, the court was told.

But orthopaedic surgeon Dr Alberto Elbo, who treated Preston at the fracture clinic the next week, said he was told by Varley the injury was caused as the child was being strapped into a car seat.

“That’s what dad told me,” he told the court. “What I understood from that day was he was being strapped in his car seat.”

And Varley’s co-worker Janet Gee said Varley gave her a different explanation, telling the trial: “The inconsistency was around the cot; the first instance was he dropped him, the second was he had his arm out of the cot and hurt it.

“So, no consistency.”

The hospital had “absolutely no concerns”, Preston’s social worker told Varley in a text message.

And an independent reviewer from Oldham social services wrote in a report after visiting the family at home, apparently addressing Preston: “You were happy there with both your daddies.

“And this made me ponder a little as to whether there was a problem that I couldn’t see.

“I decided there wasn’t an issue…”

The court was told Varley had taken a sabbatical from South Shore Academy, where he was also a head of year and a designated safeguarding lead, to look after Preston, who was adopted through Oldham Council, but struggled as a new parent.

One neighbour thought: “Why is the baby crying so much?” and heard raised voices, though she described the defendants as an “ordinary, friendly couple”.

There is a feeling locally that those who saw Preston in the run-up to his demise may have fallen foul of so-called ‘positive bias’ - refusing to believe his new fathers were capable of such malevolence, according to one source briefed on the case.

But over the four months under his adoptive parents’ care, Preston was routinely ill-treated, had indecent images and videos taken of him, was sexually abused and physically assaulted.

After a lifeless Preston was taken to the Vic on July 27 2023, Varley told police the baby had accidentally drowned in a bath after being left for two or three minutes.

But Preston had arrived at hospital dry and with a nappy on and had no water in his lungs.

Tests on his body uncovered multiple non-accidental internal and external injuries, including bruises and grazes to his head, face and mouth, upper limbs, chest, back and left thigh, as well as injuries to his mouth, throat and bottom.

There was nothing to suggest drowning, the court was told, with a pathologist saying the boy died because he was smothered or choked on something inserted into his mouth.

The suspicion is that Preston choked while being assaulted.

Dr Joanne Gifford, an expert in child sexual abuse, said she discovered 40 injuries on Preston, internally and externally, including tears and lacerations.

“The injuries are clinical signs of sexual abuse,” she said. “More than one occasion.”

The jury had to look at videos and photographs of Preston’s bruises - both before and after his murder - along with images of his anatomy, parts of which were branded “abnormal” and caused by “forcible penetration” by a Home Office pathologist.

There was also a bite mark on his bottom, the court was told.

There were claims in court that the injuries, including bruising at the back of Preston’s throat, may have been caused by medics’ frantic efforts to save his life.

But pathologist Dr Alison Armour dismissed the idea, insisting: “Anaesthetists are trained not to put the tube in the pharynx. It will kill the patient.”

She also said such bruising only happens in life, when blood is being pumped around the body by the heart, and that Preston’s circulation during resuscitation efforts would not have been strong enough to cause bruising.

The jurors also saw through the defendants’ lies and took about 14 hours to deliver their verdicts.

As he learned his fate on Monday, Varley stood in the dock and put his hands to his face in shock. He then fell to his knees, retched and threw up. McGowan-Fazakerley was emotionless.

With Preston’s abusers now jailed, the question that can now be officially asked is this: how, with so many people involved in his ill-fated life on the Fylde coast, from Vic medics to police and social workers, was no one capable of rescuing him before it was too late?

The NHS trust running the Vic was asked a string of questions, both during the trial and following it.

It did not answer them, with CEO Maggie Oldham instead saying in a statement: “The appalling murder of Preston Davey has shocked us all and our thoughts remain with Preston’s family and all the people affected by these terrible crimes.

“We are working closely with other agencies and are continuously improving our child safeguarding. We are committed to encouraging colleagues to speak up about anything they are not comfortable with or concerned about.

“We will now consider carefully all the evidence heard at the trial to identify if any further improvements are necessary, beyond the safeguards already in place.”

The hospital was unable to carry out a full inquiry into Preston’s treatment because of the police investigation and trial, but bosses are now expected to review evidence from court to see if any improvements can be made, it is understood.

DCI Andy Fallows from Lancashire Police’s Force Major Investigation Team said: “It is not often in this job that you encounter pure evil.

“Anybody who has followed this trial will no doubt understand why I place Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley in that category.

“Almost from day one, they set about abusing Preston and making his short life a harrowing tale of misery and pain. It was this abuse that ultimately led to Preston’s death.

“For the first nine months of his life Preston was a happy and healthy child - but by the end he was a broken shell.

“This was due to the sordid and wicked acts of Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley.”