SHOCKING REVELATION FROM FOSTER MOTHER’S INNER CIRCLE HORRIFIES PRESTON DAVEY CASE
‘I had a gut feeling they were hiding him from me’ – the desperate warnings that went unheeded before baby was abused and murdered by the men meant to love him
As the full horror of little Preston Davey’s short life continues to grip the nation, a devastating account from those closest to his devoted foster mother has reignited public fury over the tragedy that claimed a 13-month-old boy’s life.
Sandra Cooper, the experienced foster carer who nurtured Preston from the age of five days, had repeatedly voiced her deepest fears that something was terribly wrong after the smiling, sparkling-eyed toddler was placed with his prospective adoptive parents. Those closest to her say the signs were there – cancelled visits, a changed demeanour in the child, and an unmistakable sense that the new carers were deliberately keeping him away.
Preston Davey was born on 16 June 2022. Within five days an emergency care order removed him from the care of his biological mother, Sarah Davey, and he was placed with Sandra and Paul Cooper. The couple, who had fostered 43 children over 27 years, described a baby who thrived in their home. He was joyful, content, and had “sparkly smiling eyes.” Videos and photographs later released by police show a giggling, interactive infant full of life – the very image of a child who had found safety and love.
In those first nine months Preston was, in Sandra’s words, “beautiful… happy… he laughed, he smiled really early. Just a really lovable baby. He loved cuddles… he was just having a really nice life.” A consultant who examined him found him “gorgeous, happy, alert and interactive.” The Coopers had planned for Preston to be their last foster child before retirement. Instead, they would later tell a court they now feel anxious and mistrustful every time a child leaves their care.
In early 2023 the matching process began. Jamie Varley, then 37, a high-school teacher and head of year at a Blackpool secondary school, and his partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, a financial sales manager, had been approved as prospective adopters. The introductions seemed positive at first. Sandra Cooper even stayed nearby so she could support overnight stays. On 3 April 2023, nine-month-old Preston moved into the couple’s Blackpool home.
Almost immediately the atmosphere changed. Planned visits became difficult. A meeting arranged for Sandra’s birthday was cancelled. When she did see Preston at Barton Grange on 29 April 2023 she was alarmed: he looked “stiff and a bit blank.” She told social workers she had a “gut feeling” something was wrong and that the men were “hiding him” from her. “I was worried. I felt like something is wrong. I felt like they were hiding him from me,” she told Preston Crown Court. Those close to Sandra say the concern was constant in the weeks and months that followed. She complained to a social worker. The response, according to evidence, did not prevent the eventual tragedy.
Over the next four months Preston was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital three times. He suffered nosebleeds, breathing difficulties and a fractured elbow. Social workers visited the home. Each time explanations of childhood accidents or clumsiness were accepted. Behind closed doors, the court would later hear, the child was subjected to a campaign of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. He suffered more than 40 traumatic injuries. Indecent images and videos were taken. On 27 July 2023 Varley carried the unresponsive toddler into hospital, claiming he had left him briefly in the bath and found him submerged. Pathologists ruled out drowning. The cause of death was acute upper airway obstruction consistent with smothering or objects forced into his mouth.
Varley was convicted of murder, multiple counts of sexual assault and assault by penetration, child cruelty, grievous bodily harm and making and distributing indecent images of a child. McGowan-Fazakerley was convicted of allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and sexual assault. In June 2026 Mr Justice Turner sentenced Varley to a whole-life order – he will never be released – describing the case as one of the “utmost gravity.” McGowan-Fazakerley received 25 years. The judge spoke of “unremitting abuse” and of Preston being used as a “plaything.”
The foster mother’s early warnings have become central to the public reckoning. Friends and those who knew the Coopers well describe how Sandra’s instincts – honed by nearly three decades of caring for vulnerable infants – were dismissed or insufficiently acted upon. She had walked “to the ends of the earth” for one final visit. After the couple complained about another foster carer being present during introductions, Sandra felt she would never see Preston again. Her husband Paul later told the court that saying goodbye and handing the child over had been “extremely difficult.” Both continue to foster in Preston’s memory, though the experience has left them deeply changed.
Preston’s biological mother, Sarah Davey, who has her own tragic history, spoke of “unimaginable pain” at the thought of what her son endured in his final months. She had trusted that the system and the foster parents would keep him safe. The Coopers themselves described watching old videos of Preston laughing and playing, only to wake from dreams in which he was still alive and confront the reality of how he died.
The case has prompted calls from MPs for a full public inquiry into the safeguarding failures. Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has described the murder as a “massive safeguarding failure.” Questions remain about the adoption assessment process, the monitoring after placement, the response to hospital presentations, and the weight given to the experienced foster mother’s repeated expressions of concern.
A timeline of the short life of Preston Davey now reads like a catalogue of missed opportunities. Born into care. Thriving with foster parents who adored him. Matched and placed with a teacher and his partner who presented as caring. Gradual isolation from the people who had known him best. Multiple medical contacts that raised no decisive alarm. And finally, a death that pathologists confirmed was no accident.
Those close to Sandra Cooper say the “gut feeling” she described in court was not a vague hunch but the product of intimate knowledge of a child she had raised from five days old. When she saw him looking blank and stiff, when visits were blocked, when the new parents appeared to shut the previous carers out, she knew something was wrong. That knowledge, shared with professionals, did not save Preston.
The images that remain – Preston beaming on a play mat, giggling in a highchair, eyes sparkling with the joy of a safe and loved baby – stand in unbearable contrast to the injuries catalogued after his death. Police released footage of the happy infant precisely so that the public would remember him as he had been in the care of Sandra and Paul Cooper, not as the broken child who arrived at hospital on that July evening in 2023.
The revelations from those around the foster mother have not rewritten the court findings. They have simply underlined what Sandra herself told the jury: she felt something was wrong, she believed the men were hiding the child, and she raised the alarm. The system that was supposed to protect Preston Davey heard her – and the worst still happened.
As politicians demand answers and the Coopers continue their quiet work of fostering in his name, the questions that hang over this case refuse to fade. How many more gut feelings must be ignored before every safeguard is examined with the urgency a 13-month-old’s life deserved? Preston Davey’s smile, captured forever in those early photographs and videos, demands nothing less.
The full story of how a healthy, happy baby became the victim of sustained abuse and murder under the care of the men approved to adopt him will continue to unfold through further reviews and public debate. But for Sandra Cooper and those who stood closest to her, the signs were visible long before the final tragedy. Their revelation – that a foster mother’s deepest instincts were not enough – remains one of the most haunting elements of a case that has already shocked the country to its core.