A high school teacher has been found guilty of the murder and sexual abuse of a 13-month-old baby he treated as a “plaything”.
Jamie Varley, 37, adopted Preston Davey at nine months old with his partner, ex-public schoolboy and financial sales manager John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32. Preston had been taken from his mother, Sarah Davey, now 42, by an emergency care order by Oldham Council. Ms Davey, when she was 14, had been jailed for the “unspeakably wicked” murder of a frail pensioner in 1998 and had been in and out of prison since then.
Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were approved for adoption, and at nine months old, Preston began living at their home in Blackpool, Lancashire, in April 2023. 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, was sexually abused, and physically assaulted, suffering 40 traumatic injuries, the defendant’s trial at Preston Crown Court heard.
Following an eight-week trial, a jury spent around 14 hours considering verdicts before returning to court to deliver them. Varley 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 count of distributing an indecent photo of a child to his co-accused, and one count of making an indecent photo. McGowan-Fazakerley was found guilty of allowing the death of a child, two counts of child cruelty, and one count of sexual assault of a child.
Varley stood in the dock and put his hands to his face in shock as the guilty verdicts were read, before collapsing to his knees, retching, and vomiting. His co-accused made no reaction, while McGowan-Fazakerley’s father shook his head. Preston’s mother and grandmother burst into tears, sobbing throughout as the 29 guilty verdicts were returned.
Both defendants will not be sentenced today; Mr Justice Turner said he will pass sentence on Thursday. Mr Justice Turner thanked the jury for their public service, adding: “Once you have been discharged from this case, bearing in mind what we have called upon you to do, I’m going to exempt you from the obligation to sit on a jury for life.” The judge left court without directly addressing the defendants. Varley, who faces a mandatory life sentence for murder, appeared to be in a trance-like state, a prison officer having to repeat his name to get his attention before he was taken from the dock to the cells.
The 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 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 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 “finger tip” 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 airways obstruction by an object or objects inserted into his mouth.
A child safeguarding practice review, paused during the criminal proceedings, will be re-launched by Oldham Council following the guilty verdicts. 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 re-started 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 protruding, and his lips 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 child abuse.
