In the quiet solemnity of Preston Crown Court the final chapter of a short and brutal life unfolded without a flicker of remorse from the man who had ended it. Jamie Varley, once a respected teacher who presented himself to the world as a devoted new father, stood in faded black jeans and a dark polo top, the carefully maintained suit of respectability abandoned at last, and showed no emotion as he learned he would never leave prison. The 37-year-old had been convicted of the murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey, the baby boy he and his partner had adopted only months earlier, and of subjecting that child to sustained physical and Sєxual abuse.

Beside him John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, received a 25-year sentence for his part in the same catalogue of cruelty. The court heard that Preston’s brief existence had been marked by routine ill-treatment, Sєxual abuse and physical ᴀssault from the moment he left the safety of his foster home and entered the couple’s house in the Lancashire village of Staining. Born to Sarah Davey, a woman who herself had been jailed as a child for the murder of a 71-year-old, the infant was placed with experienced foster carers Sandra and Paul Cooper when he was only five days old. For nine months the Coopers cared for a happy, if occasionally restless, baby who needed little more than a soothing stroke of the head to settle. In April 2023 that stability ended when Preston moved in with Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley after a carefully staged adoption process that had begun during the Covid pandemic.

Varley, a design-and-technology teacher who had risen to head of year at South Shore Academy in Blackpool, told the jury he had always dreamed of becoming “a teacher, a daddy with a Jeep who lived on a farm.” As a gay man he had once believed fatherhood impossible until he met McGowan-Fazakerley, a sales manager who travelled regularly to Manchester. The pair earned comparable salaries yet decided Varley would take a year away from work to raise any child they adopted. Friends and colleagues saw an outgoing, theatrical figure who called himself a “drama queen” and a quieter, more reserved partner. Behind closed doors the reality was different. Within days of Preston’s arrival the messages flying between Varley and his sister, a professional sleep trainer, and other contacts painted a picture of mounting resentment: the baby was “annoying,” “very needy,” screamed “like he’s being killed,” and left the new parents “questioning every choice.”

PH๏τographs and videos that Varley himself recorded became central evidence. Some showed the child in everyday settings; others captured him in positions the prosecution described as unsafe and dangerous, including one sequence lasting more than three minutes in which Preston’s neck rested on the bar of his cot while his lips turned blue and liquid filled his mouth. Another image showed an exhausted infant deliberately kept awake to the soundtrack of a children’s film. Neighbours reported hearing prolonged crying through thin walls; one recalled McGowan-Fazakerley apologising for the noise. Preston was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital three times before the final fatal visit—once with a chest infection, once with a fever, and once with a fractured elbow that Varley claimed was accidental. A colleague later told the court that Varley had spoken of dark thoughts of drowning or suffocating the child, though he insisted he would never act on them. On 27 July 2023 Varley telephoned for help after what he described as a bath-time accident. No evidence supported that account. A postmortem examination revealed approximately forty external and internal injuries consistent with forcible penetration and Sєxual abuse. The jury concluded that Varley had treated the baby as a Sєxual plaything for his own gratification and that the abuse culminated in murder. Throughout the eight-week trial the prosecution dismantled the image of the doting father, labelling him an arrogant, self-centred liar whose mask of respectability finally fell away in the dock. The case has left lingering questions about the safeguards within local-authority adoption processes across the United Kingdom, processes that allowed a child already removed from a traumatic birth family to be placed in a household where, within four short months, he would suffer systematic cruelty and lose his life. Varley’s whole-life order means he will die in custody; McGowan-Fazakerley’s 25-year term reflects the gravity of his joint responsibility. For the foster carers who had once rocked a contented baby to sleep, and for a justice system that can only now speak the full truth, the courtroom silence of the man who once claimed he only wanted to be a daddy remains the most chilling note of all.

Source: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/inside-courtroom-preston-daveys-murderer-34146115