When the judge looked across the courtroom at Jamie Varley and told him he would never be released from prison, the words landed with a finality that left the public gallery in tears. Mr Justice Turner described the case as one of the utmost gravity that had shocked the nation. He told the former secondary school teacher that a whole-life order was a sentence of last resort reserved for crimes of the most extreme seriousness, and that this was such a crime. “You will stay in prison for the whole of your life. You will never be released,” the judge said. Beside Varley sat his former partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, who had just been sentenced to twenty-five years for his role in the events that ended the life of thirteen-month-old Preston Davey. In the public gallery the child’s birth mother and maternal grandmother listened as the sentences were delivered. Debbie Davey, who had fought unsuccessfully to keep her grandson within the family, sobbed openly. Sarah Davey sat beside her, the weight of years of loss visible on her face.

The sentencing hearing on 18 June 2026 marked the end of a long and painful legal process. Preston had been born on 16 June 2022 and taken into care five days later. After nine months with foster carers he was placed in April 2023 with Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley. Four months later he was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. On 27 July 2023 he collapsed at the couple’s Blackpool home while in Varley’s sole care. He was rushed to hospital in cardiac arrest and pronounced ᴅᴇᴀᴅ the same evening. A post-mortem examination found more than forty traumatic injuries and evidence consistent with Sєxual abuse, establishing the cause of death as acute upper airway obstruction rather than the accidental drowning Varley had claimed. The trial that followed lasted seven to eight weeks. The jury convicted Varley of murder together with multiple counts of Sєxual ᴀssault, child cruelty, grievous bodily harm and offences relating to indecent images of the child. McGowan-Fazakerley was convicted of causing or allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and Sєxual ᴀssault.

In her victim impact statement, read to the court, Sarah Davey spoke of the unimaginable pain of wondering what her son had suffered and declared that she would never forgive the men responsible. She described the moment she first held Preston and the devastation of having him removed, followed by the shattered hope that adoption would keep him safe. Debbie Davey has repeatedly said that she asked social services to leave the child with his foster carers until she recovered from breast cancer so that she could raise him herself. That request was refused. She remains convinced that a different decision would have saved her grandson’s life. The judge’s words at sentencing offered a measure of legal finality, but for the family the emotional reckoning continues. An independent safeguarding review is examining the decisions that led to the placement and the monitoring that followed. Members of Parliament have called for a full public inquiry. For those who sat in the courtroom and heard a High Court judge tell a former teacher that he would die in prison, the moment carried both relief and irreversible sorrow. Preston Davey will always be thirteen months old. The man who murdered him will never walk free.

Source: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/preston-daveys-gran-wanted-keep-34128960