“FAILED BY THE SYSTEM…” HEARTBREAKING FINAL MOMENTS — Baby Preston seen laughing before tragic d3ath
FAILED BY THE SYSTEM
Heartbreaking video shows baby Preston giggling with foster dad before he was placed in clutches of paedo who killed him
HEARTBREAKING footage shows baby Preston Davey laughing with his foster dad before he was sent to live with a paedo teacher who killed him.
The tragic tot was captured smiling as he played in a high chair while in the care of his foster parents Sandra and Paul Cooper.
Baby Preston could be seen laughing with his foster parents
Just months later he was sexually abused and murdered by his adopted dad
Just months later, Preston was placed in the evil clutches of Jamie Varley and boyfriend John McGowan-Fazakerley.
The couple sexually abused the baby and tormented him physically and emotionally over a four-month period.
His short life was brutally cut short in July 2023 when Varley, 36, smothered him to death at the couple’s home.
Both Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley have now been jailed after they were convicted of a string of offences.
John McGowan-Fazakerley sexually abused the baby boyCredit: PA
Jamie Varley was convicted of murdering the totCredit: PA
Teacher Varley was today handed a whole life order after he was convicted of murder, two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm and sexual assault of a child.
McGowan-Fazakerley was jailed for 25 years after he was found guilty of allowing the death of a child, two counts of child cruelty and one count of the sexual assault of a child.
Preston Crown Court heard the tot began living with the couple in their Blackpool home in April 2023 after undergoing an assessment and familiarisation process.
He had been removed from his birth mum Sarah Davey under an emergency care order.
Tragically, his short life was bookended by murder as Davey was a killer schoolgirl who tortured an OAP to death when she was just 14.
She today wept as she told how a part of herself died following Preston’s death in a heartbreaking victim impact statement.
Preston was subjected to horror abuseCredit: PA
Shocking video showed the couple rushing Preston to hospitalCredit: Unknown
Varley was then captured wailing as medics tried to save the baby
Varley filmed himself torturing the baby
Davey also said the day her baby son was taken from her was “one of the worst days of my life” but she believed he would be “safe, loved, and protected”.
She added: “Preston was innocent. He was defenceless. He relied entirely on you – the adults responsible for him – to love him, care for him, and keep him safe.
“Instead, you caused him suffering. You took away his chance to grow up, to go to school, to make friends, to live a full life. You took everything from him.
“I will never forgive you for what you did to my son and what you stopped him from becoming and achieving in his life.”
The court heard that after he was removed from Davey and placed in foster care, Preston was as a happy, smiley baby.
But after being adopted, he was said to look “blank” – a sign child abuse expert Dr Joanne Gifford described to the jury as “frozen watchfulness”, a trauma and stress response to child abuse.
Just days after Preston moved in with Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley, the sickening campaign of torture had begun.
Varley, who took a year off work as head of year to adopt a child, confessed he was struggling with a lack of sleep due to the baby constantly waking in the night.
On April 6, 2023, he texted his sister, a baby sleep trainer: “He’s dead meat today. Didn’t sleep last night after 11.30. Up every, one and a half hours.”
Once in the couple’s care, Preston was taken to hospital three times – once with a fractured left elbow.
It has now emerged there were eight missed chances to save the tot before he was killed.
Preston died just four months after he moved in with the coupleCredit: PA
His mum is schoolgirl killer Sarah Davey
She paid tribute to Preston in a victim impact statement todayCredit: CHRIS NEILL
Preston suffered 40 different injuriesCredit: Enterprise
On one occasion, a hospital safeguarding team expressed their fears to Lancashire Constabulary but the matter was closed when a consultant said there was nothing to worry about.
Social workers also visited the couple and Preston at home several times before his death but failed to notice he was being abused.
The court was told Varley’s sexual interest in Preston was evident “within weeks” of his placement and that the teacher treated him as a “plaything”.
One harrowing video showed the teacher startling distressed Preston awake by yelling “boo”.
McGowan-Fazakerley “shared” his depraved interest, which was shown in indecent images and videos taken of the baby.
Police recovered a series of harrowing photos of Preston taken over a period of three minutes 12 seconds while he was being sexually assaulted.
Four days later in July 2023, Varley recorded another video of Preston in extreme distress, hardly breathing and taking “agonal breaths” as he lay dying.
Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were later captured on CCTV rushing the “floppy” tot to A&E while Varley begged: “Don’t let him die. Please don’t let him die.”
The “hysterical” dad claimed he had left the baby in the bath while he had a shower and returned three to four minutes later to find him unresponsive.
In reality, the brute had sexually abused Preston before smothering the tot with his hand, fabric or by inserting an object into his mouth.
Medics worked for nearly an hour to resuscitate the baby until an agonising decision was made that further intervention was futile
Varley then tried to give chest compressions and mouth to mouth resuscitation to Preston, despite the breathing tube being still in place.
When told by doctors that Preston could not be saved, Varley pleaded with them to “kill me” and wailed loudly: “It’s all my fault”.
The teacher, who was wearing a red Jurassic Park T-shirt and tartan pyjama bottoms, was filmed sobbing loudly on the hospital floor.
Nurses and police could be seen trying to comfort Varley as he cried: “I can’t, no, I have done this”.
When one of the hospital staff told him that Preston needs him, he replied: “He doesn’t need me, it’s my fault…please get my mum…this is not happening…please kill me, please kill me.”
Varley eventually went to see and cradle his dead son but was heard saying: “I probably won’t see you again, I’m definitely going to hell.”
He continued to spin a web of lies about Preston drowning but the baby had dry hair, was wearing a nappy, the bath tub was empty and no water was found in his lungs.
Preston’s cause of death was instead given as an acute obstruction of his upper airway.
A post mortem found he had suffered 40 multiple non-accidental, internal and external injuries.
The jury heard some of these injuries showed clinical signs of sexual abuse, including “forcible penetration”.
An independent safeguarding review will now take place to see if anything more could have been done to save Preston.
A spokesperson for the children’s charity said: “This trial and sentencing hearing have revealed the full extent of the pain and suffering endured by Preston Davey in his short life.
“To learn of the abuse inflicted on him by Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley before his murder is harrowing and deeply upsetting, and it must drive thorough and meaningful review and scrutiny.
“There are clearly important lessons from this terrible case, and the Child Safeguarding Practice Review must establish whether more could have been done to protect Preston, and how we can learn from any failings to prevent future tragedies where possible.”
CRE: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/39456975/baby-preston-laughs-foster-dad-paedo-killer/
