SHOCKING TESTIMONY THAT EXPOSED A MONSTER: How the lies of a teacher who murdered his 13-month-old adopted son finally unravelled in court – leaving a nation horrified
By Daily Mail Reporter
In a case that has left Britain reeling with horror and heartbreak, the chilling testimony and forensic evidence surrounding the death of tiny Preston Davey has laid bare one of the most sickening betrayals of trust in recent memory.
What began as a desperate claim of a tragic bathing accident collapsed under the weight of medical science, recovered videos, and the quiet, devastating statements of those who loved the little boy. The public, already shocked by the details that emerged during the lengthy trial at Preston Crown Court, has been left stunned by just how calculated and cruel the final days of this “sweet and bubbly” child truly were.
Preston Davey was just 13 months old when he was pronounced dead at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on the evening of 27 July 2023. His adoptive father, former high school teacher Jamie Varley, 37, told doctors and later police that he had left the toddler alone in the bath for only two or three minutes. When he returned, he claimed, the baby was submerged.
It was a story designed to evoke sympathy – a momentary lapse by an exhausted new parent. Instead, it became the first of many lies that would be systematically dismantled by pathologists, paediatric experts and the digital trail left on Varley’s own phone.
The jury heard that there was no water in Preston’s lungs. No signs consistent with drowning. What they did find were approximately 40 separate traumatic injuries – bruises, internal trauma, a fractured arm, and other marks that experts described as non-accidental. Some of those injuries, the court was told, were consistent with recent sexual assault.
Varley was ultimately convicted of murder, multiple counts of sexual assault, child cruelty, and making and distributing indecent images of the child. He received a whole-life order – meaning he will never be released. His partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was found guilty of allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and sexual assault, and was jailed for 25 years.
The details that emerged during the trial, and especially the forensic contradiction of Varley’s drowning claim, have continued to shock the public long after the verdicts.
A short life stolen
Preston was born on 16 June 2022. Within days he was taken into care by Oldham Council and placed with foster parents who described him as a happy, thriving little boy. In April 2023, at around ten months old, he was placed for adoption with Varley, then a head of year at a Blackpool secondary school, and McGowan-Fazakerley.
The couple appeared to present as a stable, professional pair ready to offer a loving home. Social workers who visited later said they did not believe the child was in danger. That assessment has since become the focus of intense public anger and calls for a full inquiry into the adoption process.
Within weeks of Preston moving into the couple’s Blackpool home, the abuse began. Neighbours later told the court they had heard an “unusual amount of crying” and raised voices. One neighbour said she frequently wondered why the baby cried so much.
Videos recovered from Varley’s phone painted a far darker picture. Experts in child abuse told the jury that footage showed Preston in a state of “frozen watchfulness” – a recognised response in babies subjected to trauma. Other clips captured the child being deliberately kept awake, spun violently on playground equipment, and left in dangerous positions in his cot.
Four days before his death, Varley took a series of photographs of Preston draped over the bars of his cot, neck pressed against the railing in what a pathologist described as an “alarmingly dangerous” position that would have restricted his breathing.
Then came 27 July.
The fatal afternoon and the drowning lie
According to the prosecution, Varley was alone with Preston that afternoon while McGowan-Fazakerley was at work. At around 4.35pm, Varley recorded a video of the child in extreme distress – gasping, lips blue, taking what experts called “agonal breaths.” Instead of calling an ambulance immediately, he continued using Snapchat and checking emails.
Ninety minutes later, the couple arrived at Blackpool Victoria Hospital with Preston in cardiac arrest. Medics fought for nearly an hour to save him. They failed. He was pronounced dead at 7.20pm.
Varley’s account to staff was consistent and calm: he had left the baby in the bath for a short time and found him underwater. Yet when Home Office pathologist Dr Alison Armour conducted the post-mortem, she found no evidence of drowning. There was no significant water in the airways or lungs. The cause of death, she concluded, was acute upper airway obstruction – consistent with smothering or something being forced into the child’s mouth.
Dr Armour also catalogued the array of injuries. Bruises to the forehead, throat, mouth and body. Internal trauma. A fractured arm that predated the final day. Marks she believed were consistent with a human bite. Some injuries, she told the jury, were “most unusual” in her nearly four decades of experience.
A defence expert later agreed there was no evidence of drowning, though he argued the exact cause of death remained “unascertained.” The jury rejected that view.
The medical evidence did more than contradict a single lie. It destroyed the carefully constructed image of a tragic accident and revealed a pattern of sustained cruelty that had escalated over months.
Videos that could not be explained away
Perhaps the most damning material recovered by detectives was the digital record left by Varley himself. Phone footage showed Preston in obvious distress on multiple occasions in the weeks before his death. One video, filmed weeks earlier, was later produced by Varley at a hospital visit as an explanation for bruising. He claimed the child was clumsy and had pulled a toy box onto himself. Investigators later established the video had been filmed nearly two weeks before that hospital trip – it could not account for the fresher injuries.
Other clips captured the child struggling to breathe. One expert told the court that watching certain footage made her want to “resuscitate him immediately.” The child, she said, looked “terminal.”
Prosecutors argued these recordings were not accidental. Some, they said, appeared to be “trophies.” The jury agreed.
McGowan-Fazakerley maintained he had trusted his partner “indefinitely” and had no knowledge of the full extent of the abuse. The jury found that claim unconvincing. He had, the court heard, been present for at least one sexual assault and had failed to protect the child despite warning signs.
A mother’s unimaginable pain
In one of the most emotional moments of the sentencing hearing, a statement from Preston’s biological mother, Sarah Davey, was read to the court. She described the “unimaginable pain of wondering” what her son endured in his final months.
“Preston should be here today… instead, he is forever 13 months old,” she said. “The second he was placed in my arms, I fell completely in love with him.”
She told the court she would never forgive the men responsible.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Fallows, who led the investigation, later released video of Preston laughing and smiling in happier times – footage taken before the adoption – and urged the public not to forget the victim amid the headlines about his killers.
“He was a happy and thriving boy who would have been celebrating his fourth birthday if it wasn’t for the actions of Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley,” the officer said.
Whole-life justice and unanswered questions
Sentencing Varley, the judge left no room for doubt. “It was you who did this. You murdered him,” he said. A whole-life order, he explained, is reserved for cases of the most extreme gravity. This, the court found, was one of them.
McGowan-Fazakerley received 25 years.
The case has triggered wider questions. Two MPs have called for a public inquiry into how the adoption was approved and whether safeguarding opportunities were missed. Social workers had visited the home and raised no immediate alarms. Neighbours had heard prolonged crying. Hospital staff had seen earlier bruising. Yet the abuse continued until it killed the child.
Lancashire Police have said their investigation found no prior evidence that either man had a known sexual interest in children before the adoption. That finding has only deepened public unease about how such men were able to take a vulnerable baby into their home.
A nation still processing the horror
The trial lasted weeks. The evidence was harrowing. Jurors were repeatedly warned about the distressing nature of the material they would see and hear. Pathologists, paediatricians specialising in child abuse, and digital forensic experts all painted the same picture: a little boy who arrived in a new home full of smiles and left it with more than 40 injuries and no chance of life.
The drowning story – so simple, so plausible on its face – was the thread that, once pulled, unravelled everything. Medical science showed it was false. The phone footage showed a child in repeated distress. The pattern of injuries showed sustained violence and sexual abuse. The timeline showed calculated delay in seeking help on the final day.
In the end, the jury saw through the performance of the respectable teacher and the claims of an overwhelmed new parent. What remained was the reality of a 13-month-old who spent his last months in fear and pain at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect him.
Preston Davey will never grow up. He will never take his first proper steps into a safe world, never start school, never celebrate birthdays beyond the thirteen months he was given. His laughter, captured in those police-released videos, is now the only public record of the bright little boy he was before the darkness closed in.
The public shock that greeted the testimony and verdicts has not faded. It has hardened into a demand for answers – about the adoption system, about the warning signs that were missed, and about how two men were able to inflict such sustained cruelty on a baby who had already survived a difficult start in life.
Justice, in the form of whole-life imprisonment for the principal offender, has been delivered. But for those who loved Preston, and for a public still trying to comprehend the scale of the betrayal, the questions remain as painful as the answers already given.
The little boy who should have been turning four this year is gone. The men who took him from the world will, in one case, never walk free again. And the country is left to confront the uncomfortable truth that even the most carefully constructed lies eventually collapse under the weight of evidence – and that sometimes, that collapse comes far too late for the smallest and most vulnerable among us.
