Former Blackpool teacher given whole life order for murder of baby Preston Davey

Jamie Varley has been sentenced to a whole life order and John McGowan-Fazakerley to 25 years in jail for the sexual abuse and murder of an innocent baby boy.

Preston Davey, born at Wythenshawe Hospital on 16th June 2022, was barely a year old when he devastatingly passed away at Blackpool Hospital, after four months of a torrent of abuse.

Shortly after being born, Preston was placed into emergency foster care and for 9 months, enjoyed a happy and healthy life with his foster carers.

On the 21st March 2023, an adoption panel approved the adoption of Preston by Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley. It was from then until his death, that Preston endured what no child should.

During this four-month period, Preston was described as ‘annoying’ by Varley and Varley told friends that he was struggling to cope with the demands of looking after a child, but things took an even darker turn.

Less than a month after being placed into the care of the men, Varley had taken an indecent video of Preston; the first of a hoard of similar images and videos, which we discovered on his phone after his arrest.

There were also occasions where Preston was taken to hospital after suffering from what Varley described as seizures, where Preston was struggling to breathe. He was also taken to hospital with rashes and bruising; Police were contacted by safeguarding staff at the hospital and detectives from our Child Protection Team attended.

However, medical staff indicated there were no concerns around any potential non-accidental injury. This was the only time police received contact from hospital staff regarding Preston Davey until he died on 27th June 2023.

On that day, Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley rushed Preston to hospital as he was floppy and unresponsive. He was pronounced deceased at 7:20pm. It would later become apparent that earlier in the day, Preston had been the victim of yet another sexual assault by Varley, yet in the aftermath of Preston’s passing, he would lie and deceive hospital staff and our officers by claiming Preston had become submerged in a bath.

A Home Office postmortem revealed that Preston had suffered 40 traumatic injuries during his time with Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley, including at least 30 external bruises, internal bruising to his pharynx and bladder, injuries to his anus and bowel and a healing fracture to his left upper arm, that was non-accidental in nature.

Preston ultimately died as a result of an Acute Upper Airway Obstruction.

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