The death of Preston Davey shames the British state

Preston Davey was 13 months old when he died at the hands of Jamie Varley, after months of torture from Varley and his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley. Reading the details of the depraved and evil acts committed by the two men – including repeated physical, sexual and emotional abuse – is unbearable. In July 2023, Varley rushed Preston to hospital claiming that he had drowned in the bath, but this lie was exposed by a postmortem that found ‘40 external and internal trauma injuries to the child’s body’.

Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley seem to have adopted Preston for the purpose of abusing him – he was in their care just four months before his death. Varley had even filmed Preston taking his last breaths before going to hospital. The wickedness it must take to commit such acts is bone-chilling.

The only consolation – and it is a small one – is that both will spend a very long time in prison. At Preston Crown Court on Thursday, Varley was was given a whole life order for the murder and sexual abuse of Preston. McGowan-Fazakerley was sentenced to 25 years for allowing the death of a child, sexual abuse and child cruelty.

Preston’s short life is a tale of woe. He was born in June 2022 to Sarah Davey, who had been in and out of jail following a mandatory life sentence she received for the brutal murder of pensioner Lily Lilley in 1998. After his birth, Preston was put into emergency care and spent the first nine months of his life in foster care. In January 2023, Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were approved to adopt Preston. On 1 April of that year, he spent the first night at their home in Blackpool.

Less than two months later, Preston was rushed to hospital floppy and unresponsive. He returned to hospital again in June and July with injuries including bruising, seizures and respiratory failures. Despite this, social workers who visited Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley at their home said they did not feel that he was in danger. We now know that all of these hospital visits were the result of sexual and physical abuse.

While it might be fruitless to try to understand why these two men sank to such depths, there are very necessary questions about why no alarm bells were raised by Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley’s behaviour. Varley had messaged many friends and relatives complaining that Preston was a difficult baby, and that he was having fantasies about ‘drowning’ or suffocating him. McGowan-Fazakerley went round to the neighbours to apologise for Preston’s constant crying. After being treated for a fractured elbow in hospital, a text from the social worker assigned to Preston read: ‘Just to reassure you they said they had absolutely no concerns. U absolutely did the right thing.’

During the trial, the judge noted that Varley – a teacher – had used his respectable credentials to play the doting parent. CCTV and police bodycam footage show Varley acting upset, his head in his hands, while bringing Preston – already deceased – into hospital. Is it possible that Varley was simply a brilliant actor, fooling everyone that he and McGowan-Fazakerley were doting parents with a clumsy child? Or was there something else going on here? Some have suggested that their middle-class lifestyle would have convinced social workers of their moral worth. Much like the grooming-gangs scandal, there are too many examples of institutionalised cowardice and failure to brush off.

Professionals missed eight opportunities to notice that Preston was being abused, taking Varley’s word that he was a bit ‘weepy’ because he had just had his injections. Debbie Davey – Preston’s maternal grandmother – has suggested that ‘social services might have been hesitant to take action when they saw Preston because they may have been accused of being homophobic’.

Many have been keen to defend gay adoptive parents in the wake of this horrific case, and they are right to do so. Nothing about Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley’s depravity is typical or representative of the majority of same-sex adoptive parents. But the question of whether social workers’ nervousness about causing offence might have prevented professionals from doing their job properly is worth asking.

For many people, adopting a child is a long and arduous process – too long and too difficult in many cases. And yet Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley got their baby in just a matter of months, and were allowed to torture and kill him. We talk about child abuse constantly – everything from social media to junk food is discussed in the language of ‘abuse’. With bans and intrusive legislation, the state seems to want to stick its oar into every child’s life in the country. And yet, when intervention is desperately needed, time and again the state seems to fail vulnerable children.

Hard questions need to be put to everyone involved in Preston Davey’s short life. Something is going terribly wrong with the system, and we can no longer allow sensitivities or nervousness to prevent us from getting to the truth.