A ‘sadistic’ school teacher who murdered his adopted baby during a sex attack was described as an ‘evil monster’ as he was told he will die in jail. Paedophile Jamie Varley, 37, a former head of year at a high school, inflicted ‘unremitting abuse’ on 13-month-old Preston Davey before a final, fatal sexual assault took his life, Preston Crown Court heard.
Varley, who adopted the child with his partner, ex-public schoolboy John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was given a whole life term and told he will never be eligible for parole after his conviction for a murder that ‘shocked the nation’. His partner was jailed for 25 years for allowing Varley’s treatment of the child and taking part in the sexual abuse.
Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Fallows, who led the murder investigation for Lancashire Police, said: ‘Jamie Varley is an evil and monstrous individual who sexually, physically and mentally abused a vulnerable baby for his own sadistic pleasure. I struggle to imagine the horror that Preston endured in his short life. This has been one of the most challenging investigations our force major investigation team has ever undertaken, and the most extreme example of sordid and wicked behaviour by two completely remorseless human beings. This is a case which has truly shocked the nation.’
Preston had been treated as a ‘plaything’, the jury at the defendant’s eight-week trial heard, with the child routinely sexually assaulted and physically abused after the couple adopted him aged nine months, before his murder four months later at their Blackpool home. Preston had been removed from his mother Sarah Davey, now 42, by an emergency care order by Oldham Council and placed into foster care at five days old. When she was 14, Ms Davey was jailed for the ‘unspeakably wicked’ murder of a frail pensioner in 1998 and had been in and out of prison since then.
Earlier, Mr Justice Turner said Preston had faced ‘unremitting abuse’ and neglect before being killed by Varley during a sex attack. Jailing Varley, he said: ‘It was you who did this. You murdered him. A whole life order is a sentence of last resort for cases of the most extreme gravity. This is a case of the most extreme gravity. You must stay in prison for the rest of your life. You will never be eligible for parole.’ Varley, wearing a purple V-neck T-shirt, looked gaunt and sat with his hands folded on his lap looking straight ahead and made no reaction.
Mr Justice Turner said Varley’s ‘growing and selfish resentment towards Preston’ played a part in him abusing the youngster, and his ‘professional background as a teacher together with your charm and easy manner’ was used to reassure others all was well. Preston’s foster parents, Sandra and Paul Cooper, described as ‘brave’ by lawyers, read out victim impact statements to the hushed courtroom. Tearfully, Mrs Cooper, who looked after Preston for nine months before his adoption, said: ‘Preston’s face would light up when we looked at him; he was joyful, so content and happy, with sparkly smiling eyes.’ Preston’s biological mother and grandmother, Sarah and Debbie Davey, sat in the public gallery and sobbed throughout the hearing.
Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were approved for adoption in January 2023 and Preston began living at their home in Blackpool in April that year. The child had been ‘thriving’, a little boy who ‘lit up the room’ with smiles, the court heard. But in the just under four months he was in their care, he was routinely ill-treated, had indecent images and videos taken of him, and was sexually abused and physically assaulted, suffering 40 traumatic injuries.
A social services investigation is under way but Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, has already described the ‘harrowing’ case as a failure of state safeguarding. Their trial heard Preston had been taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital three times in the months before his death with suspicious bruises noticed by medical staff, but these were explained away and police stood down. Preston had also been seen by multiple social workers and teachers, colleagues of Varley, who took a year off work as head of year and design and technology teacher at South Shore Academy in Blackpool.
But on July 27 2023, Varley rushed Preston to hospital a final time, unresponsive. He claimed to have left the child in the bath for a couple of minutes and returned to find him submerged. Medics worked in vain for 50 minutes to save his life. Meanwhile, Varley gave a ‘performance’ of a grieving parent that one senior doctor described as unlike any she had ever seen before. It was also noted Preston’s hair was dry, he had a nappy in place and he did not appear to have swallowed any water.
A Home Office post-mortem examination ruled out drowning as the cause of death and the examination found around 40 non-accidental, internal and external injuries. They included multiple clusters of ‘fingertip’ bruises on his head, face and limbs, slap marks on his leg, and a human bite mark on the baby’s right buttock. Preston also had injuries to his mouth, throat and bottom, with parts of his anatomy ‘abnormal’ and the injuries consistent with ‘forcible penetration’ and sexual abuse. The cause of Preston’s death was found to be acute upper airway obstruction by an object or objects inserted into his mouth.
As a ‘looked after’ child, Preston was seen by a ‘battery of professionals’ during his life including social workers, health visitors and hospital medics. A child safeguarding practice review, paused during the criminal proceedings, will be relaunched by Oldham Council. Detectives recovered evidence that Varley had confessed to a fellow teacher about having ‘dark thoughts’ of suffocating or drowning Preston. He had also sent a text to his sister saying the child was ‘dead meat’ after a sleepless night. Neighbours told the jury they wondered why they heard the baby crying so much.
Most damning of all were grim indecent photos and videos of the abuse of Preston, some of which ‘cannot be unseen’, the trial heard. Some of the evidence was too much to stomach for one juror, leading to the trial being aborted and restarted with a new jury. The photos and videos ranged from examples of Varley ‘jump scaring’ the clearly exhausted and sleepy child to wake him up, to much more potentially lethal examples. Police recovered a series of photos of Preston taken four days before his death, over a period of three minutes 12 seconds, at the time of a sexual assault. Preston is photographed along with his favourite toy teddies, suspended over the top horizontal bar of his cot, his neck resting on the bar and his legs in a ‘frog like’ position, seemingly asleep or unconscious. Fluid dribbles from his mouth, his tongue is protruding and his lips are blue from lack of oxygen. The images are too graphic to be released by police. Four days later, 90 minutes before he is rushed to hospital, Varley recorded another video, in between using Snapchat and checking emails, of Preston in extreme distress, hardly breathing and taking ‘agonal breaths’.
Preston had been described as a happy, smiley baby, clearly seen in early photos. He is described as looking ‘blank’ later in his life, a sign child abuse expert Dr Joanne Gifford described to the jury as ‘frozen watchfulness’, a trauma and stress response to abuse. Jurors on the trial were excused from doing jury service again for life.
