Blackpool man jailed after baby Preston Davey’s abuse and death

A former high school teacher from Blackpool will spend the rest of his life in prison after the death of Preston Davey exposed catastrophic failures in the systems meant to protect him. Jamie Varley, 37, was handed a whole life order at Preston Crown Court, while his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was jailed for 25 years after being convicted of allowing Preston’s death, sexual assault and child cruelty.

Preston was born in June 2022 and taken into care by Oldham Council just five days later under an emergency care order. He lived with foster parents Paul and Sandra Cooper until he was nearly 10 months old, then moved in with Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley in Blackpool in April 2023. Within four months, the court heard, the baby had suffered sexual abuse, physical assault and ill-treatment that left him with 40 traumatic injuries. He died in July 2023, aged 13 months.

The post-mortem evidence destroyed Varley’s account that Preston had accidentally drowned in a bath. A Home Office examination ruled out drowning and found the cause of death was acute upper airways obstruction, caused by an object or objects inserted into his mouth. The trial also heard that Preston had been taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital three times before he died, with suspicious bruising noticed by medical staff. Those concerns, the court heard, were explained away rather than acted on decisively.

The case has now become as much about missed warnings as about the horror inside one home. Children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza called it a “failure of the state and the safeguarding system” and said she needed to know whether Preston’s murder could have been prevented. His biological mother, Sarah Davey, told the court she would “never forgive” the men and described Preston as “perfect from the moment he was born”, adding that the day he was taken from her was one of the worst of her life.

Mr Justice Turner said Preston had faced “unremitting abuse” before imposing a sentence rarely used outside the most extreme murders. The foster parents who had cared for Preston also gave victim impact statements, saying they had loved him, believed he was safe and expected him to be going to a loving family. The judgment leaves a stark question at the centre of the case: how a baby under state protection was left so exposed, for so long, to fatal abuse.