Homosexual, Teacher, Baby Killer – the Murder of Baby Preston Davey

When a celebrated gay couple adopted a 9-month-old baby boy they immediately began abusing him. This abuse was ignored and covered-up by multiple state agencies and four months later Preston lay dead.

On the evening of May 15^th 2023, a 999-emergency call was made by John McGowan-Fazakerley. The call was abruptly abandoned after just four seconds. But before the call was disconnected, the emergency operator heard a voice in the background saying; “Put it down…”. When the 999-operator immediately called them back, John McGowan-Fazakerley and his partner Jamie Varley deflected the emergency, claiming they actually intended to call the non-emergency NHS 111 line to report that their adopted son Preston Davey was having “breathing problems”. This was a lie. Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley had been sexually and physically abusing Preston Davey almost immediately after the little boy was placed in their care just months earlier. Preston spent his first night at the couple’s house on March 31^st 2023 and by July 27^th 2023, baby Preston was dead. This is not only a horrific case of both the sexual abuse and murder of a helpless infant, but it is also a shocking example of how multiple agencies refused to acknowledge obvious warning signs and red flags that if heeded, would have saved baby Preston’s life.

Jamie Varley was born on March 11^th 1989 and grew up in a crowded home as one of six siblings. Professionally, he worked at South Shore Academy in Blackpool, starting as a design and technology/textiles technician before training to become a qualified teacher between 2019 and 2021. He was promoted quickly into key senior roles, serving as Head of Year 11 and working as a Designated Safeguarding Lead. Varley was designated as the primary, full-time caregiver for Preston and had taken an official one-year parental sabbatical from his school specifically to look after the infant. Varley had boasted to adoption panels that his extensive experience babysitting his nieces and nephews would make parenting a “breeze”. John McGowan-Fazakerley was born on July 2^nd 1993 and had been in a relationship with Varley since 2018. Unlike Varley, McGowan-Fazakerley had absolutely no background in education or child safeguarding and had zero prior experience handling babies. He instead acted as the household’s primary financial provider while Varley was on sabbatical. He worked as a sales manager for a financial services firm based at Salford Quays.

The couple began their formal adoption application process through a private agency called Adoption Now – a regional adoption agency that operates on behalf of several local authorities in the North West. Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley initially applied to adopt in December 2021 and their assessment took over a year. It has been reported that the agency’s checks failed to look past the highly polished, professional image that the couple presented. A media investigation highlighted that the couple appeared “very middle-class” and professional. Varley specifically manipulated the process by leveraging his status as a school Head of Year and Designated Safeguarding Lead and the expertise he learnt in these roles allowed him to mirror exactly what social workers wanted to hear. On January 6^th 2023, the couple was officially approved by the agency as prospective adopters. The couple picked Preston out from a national database of profiles, stating that they “knew immediately” he was the boy that they wanted.

On February 13^th 2023, Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley visited Preston for the very first time at the home of his foster parents, Paul and Sandra Cooper. Preston had lived with the Coopers since he was just five days old and was a happy, thriving nine-month-old baby. Over the next few weeks, the Coopers were tasked with observing the couple and helping them learn Preston’s routines. However, Sandra Cooper quickly noticed that the two men lacked basic, elementary parenting skills and that she was essentially having to teach them “virtually everything” about how to physically care for an infant. As the weeks progressed, Sandra Cooper developed a profound “gut instinct” that something was very wrong with the adoption. She became deeply unsettled by how the couple interacted with Preston. More alarmingly, as soon as the formal handover neared, Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley began aggressively isolating the child. They abruptly cut contact with the Coopers and actively hid Preston, refusing to let his former foster mother visit or see him.

Driven by these red flags, Sandra Cooper contacted social services to report her justified concerns about the couple’s lack of capability and their bizarre and evasive behaviour. The local authority and adoption workers did not act on her warnings due to a clear systemic bias and a lack of professional curiosity. Because Jamie Varley was a highly articulate secondary school teacher and an official Designated Safeguarding Lead, social workers repeatedly took the position that he was an inherently safe carer and highly skilled in child welfare. Those tasked with looking into the case cited Varley’s professional credentials as proof that Preston would be safe, accusing his foster mother of simply experiencing normal, emotional “separation anxiety”. The adoption agency – which was over stretched and understaffed – was heavily focused on fulfilling local authority targets to transition children out of foster care and into permanent adoptive homes and as such, Sandra Cooper’s warnings were dismissed. But this would not be the last time that such warnings were waved away.

By May 15^th 2023, the night of the first 999 call, baby Preston had been living with the couple for just over a month – yet in this short period of time the infant had already been subjected to a sickening ordeal of abuse. Bearing in mind that Sandra Cooper had already made a complaint about the couple, the aborted 999-emergency call should have triggered a serious investigation into Preston’s welfare, but sadly it was just one of many missed opportunities. Immediately following the aborted 999-call, emergency operators rang the couple back, only to be fed a pack of lies that Preston was experiencing breathing difficulties. This led to the emergency operators arranging for a medical professional to call the couple back to assess the baby’s health. This critical call-back went completely unanswered by Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley – the couple simply ignored it and no one flagged the missed medical check as a potential safeguarding risk. The following day a health visitor was due to conduct a pre-scheduled, routine check at the couple’s home. During the visit, Preston was reported as appearing “well”, but the severe breathing issues from the night before were never mentioned by the parents, and the health visitor was never made aware of the emergency call or the unanswered medical call-back.

Just ten days after the aborted 999-call on May 25^th 2023, Varley rushed Preston to Blackpool Victoria Hospital claiming the infant was floppy, unresponsive, and suffering from a seizure and respiratory issues. The hospital’s designated safeguarding team followed correct legal protocol and upon recognising that a suddenly unresponsive baby with breathing issues is a warning sign for physical abuse or shaking, they immediately logged a formal alert with Lancashire Police. Varley then fell back on his professional background and articulate persona to present himself as a stressed, deeply caring father dealing with a sudden medical anomaly. Doctors attending to Preston failed to look past this façade – writing off Preston’s condition as a natural medical event (a seizure) rather than the result of physical trauma, suffocation, or violent shaking. Those who had attended to baby Preston then formally recorded that there were “no concerns around potential non-accidental injury”. Because of the medical sign-off, the police did not apply professional curiosity – instead the Lancashire constabulary chose to ignore the case entirely – they did not deploy officers to the hospital, never physically inspected Preston to check for hidden bruising, and never conducted a standard safeguarding interview with Varley or McGowan-Fazakerley. The entire system seemed to be turning a blind eye to serious red flags.

Just over a month later on June 30^th 2023, Preston was rushed back to the A&E department by Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley, this time he was suffering from a high temperature, vomiting, diarrhoea, and a rash. During this hospital visit, nurses noticed and documented physical injuries on Preston’s body. However, Varley turned on the charm again and used his professional knowledge to provide plausible, calm explanations for the marks, claiming the bruises were standard bumps experienced by all babies as they learn to crawl. Eventually hospital staff focused entirely on treating the vomiting and rash, allowing Varley’s reassuring persona to override the physical evidence of abuse that was visible all over Preston’s body. Despite hospital staff flagging these concerns in internal notes, the staff did not escalate their findings into a formal, urgent safeguarding referral. As a result, despite this being the second time baby Preston had been rushed to hospital in just over a month, and despite clear signs of abuse being visible on his body, no physical multi-agency home check was ever triggered and Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were free to continue their abuse.

Just a week later on July 6^th 2023, baby Preston was back in hospital, this time with a broken arm – or more specifically a fractured left elbow. Varley claimed to doctors that Preston’s left arm had been injured the previous evening, stating that it was an accident that happened entirely by chance while he was trying to lay the baby down in his cot. Again, hospital staff accepted this explanation and baby Preston was released back into the care of his abusers. The day after this hospital visit (July 7^th 2023), Helen Magee, an Independent Reviewing Officer from Oldham social services visited the couple at their home. Unlike a family’s regular caseworker, an independent reviewer’s specific job is to step in periodically to look at a case with fresh eyes, audit the placement’s progress, and ensure the child’s welfare is being actively protected. Given the recent hospital visits, Helen Magee focused on Preston’s interaction with the couple, noting her own uneasiness by logging: “I did watch your responses to your daddies quite carefully as I am aware that you have had a few hospital admissions of late and this made me ponder a little as to whether there was a problem that I couldn’t see”.

Ultimately, Magee allowed the couple’s calm demeanour and their primary social worker’s reassurances to override any concerns, concluding, “I decided there wasn’t an issue”, and reported that all three seemed comfortable. Because this query was closed rather than escalated, baby Preston remained in the couple’s care completely unsupervised. Following this, the family’s primary social worker, Amy Shepherdson, who was fully aware of the hospital visit and completely accepted Varley’s explanation, sent the couple a text message to reassure them of her support, stating: “Just to reassure you they said they had absolutely no concerns. U absolutely did the right thing”. Three hospital visits, an unresponsive baby, multiple bruises, a broken arm and the testimony of Preston’s foster mother, and still social workers were fawning over the couple and even reassuring them. And just twenty days after Helen Magee’s visit to the home, Preston would be dead.

At 6:30 PM on July 27^th 2023, Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley arrived at Blackpool Victoria Hospital with an unresponsive and limp Preston Davey. Varley rushed inside carrying Preston’s body, reciting a fabricated tale to hospital staff. He claimed he had left Preston unsupervised in a bath seat for “two or three minutes” and returned to find the baby submerged. However, this time, medical staff immediately noticed something was wrong with Varley’s story – Preston was wearing a nappy, his clothes and hair were completely dry and on closer inspection his airways and lungs were completely clear of water. A team of emergency paediatricians, nurses, and paramedics immediately launched an attempt to save Preston’s life. They managed to temporarily detect minimal, weak cardiac activity for about 13 minutes as they pumped adrenaline into his body, but Preston was unable to breathe on his own and eventually, after almost 50 minutes of continuous resuscitation efforts, the medical team made the agonising decision to cease their attempts to resuscitate the infant. Preston Davey was officially pronounced dead at 7:18 PM. Whilst doctors fought to save Preston, Varley put on an elaborate, highly dramatic display of hysterics and body-worn cameras captured him throwing himself onto the hospital floor. A senior consulting doctor testified that it was a staged “performance” of grief unlike anything she had ever witnessed in her career.

Despite the fact that Preston now lay dead in the hospital, medical examiners still needed to perform basic, preliminary visual checks to establish whether Preston had been a victim of child neglect. As such, the police did not formally arrest Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley at the hospital and the couple were allowed to leave and return home. It was another massive red flag that the couple left the hospital so quickly, but the fact the police allowed them to could well have given them time to tamper with the crime scene or destroy evidence. Following initial inquiries carried out by medical examiners at the hospital, the police finally mobilised a unit to attend the couple’s home on Staining Road, Blackpool. Both Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were formally arrested inside their residence later that same evening on suspicion of child neglect.

Once the couple was in police custody, a forensic investigation team secured the property to gather evidence in order to test the “accidental bath drowning” claim. A forensics team examined the family bath and the baby bath seat. Investigators noted that despite Varley’s claim that Preston had slipped and drowned minutes before arriving at the hospital, the bathroom environment, the seat, and the surrounding floor lacked the expected water displacement and moisture consistent with a panicked rescue. Detectives then seized a number of electronic devices from the home, including tablets, computers, and the men’s primary mobile phones. Following their arrest at home on the night of July 27^th 2023 on suspicion of child neglect, both men were taken to a local police station and interviewed. However, the initial medical pathology was not yet finalised, so after their initial questioning, the couple were released on police bail.

On July 31^st 2023, the post-mortem of Preston Davey was completed, proving that he had been suffocated and revealing a total of 40 traumatic injuries. Armed with this new evidence, detectives arrested the couple for the second time in early August 2023 – the exact date of this arrest has not been released to the public. This time Varley’s arrest was upgraded to suspicion of murder and McGowan-Fazakerley’s arrest was upgraded to causing or allowing the death of a child. They were both brought back to the police station for a second round of questioning. However, in another shocking twist, they were again released on bail on the orders of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). At this point the two men decided it was time to disappear. Varley was immediately suspended from his role as a teacher, but McGowan-Fazakerley was allowed to continue on in his well-paid career in financial services. The couple then sold their house in a bid to put distance between themselves and the murder, attempting to reinvent themselves in the process.

On August 18th 2023, just 22 days after Varley had killed 13-month-old Preston Davey, the couple spent £450,000 on a detached 5-bedroom new build home in a rural area. They were intent on starting a new life together and believed they could just walk away from what they had done. In another chilling twist the couple regularly adorned their new home with decorations on every occasion, enticing children onto their lawn. In one case, the couple let children pose for pictures with a large cardboard Easter bunny that had a hole cut in the face so children could put their heads through. One neighboured interviewed by the media stated: “We don’t have kids but I remember thinking if we did, our children would have been involved in all of that. We would probably have gone inside. You would often see them out at the front of the house, especially during Christmas Easter and Halloween. They certainly did not behave as if they had something to hide”. The couple were hiding in plain sight and clearly had no shame – what’s more, they were allowed to continue interacting with children even when on police bail.

But finally, the façade came to an end. After nearly two years on police bail, on June 11^th 2025 Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were arrested for the final time. Over the 22 months that the couple had spent hiding in plain sight, digital forensic experts had meticulously combed through their electronic devices, uncovering a vast, hidden archive of incriminating media and text messages that proved that Preston had been subjected to the most horrendous physical, mental and sexual abuse. Extensive recovery of deleted and hidden files on Varley’s phone revealed 13 indecent photos and videos of Preston, which he had sent to McGowan-Fazakerley. Investigators found recorded data showing Varley had intentionally kept the 13-month-old awake for prolonged periods, prosecutors formally classified these actions as deliberate psychological cruelty. The phone also contained video footage taken just eight days before Preston’s death showing him being spun so fast on a roundabout in a park playground that his eyes rolled back – prosecutors would later state that the footage showed a terrified child who was “resigned to his fate”.

However, the most incriminating evidence was a 35-second video recorded by Varley 90 minutes before Preston was taken to the hospital in an unresponsive state. Whilst the video did not show Varley suffocating the infant, it did show the 13-month-old lying on a bed in a baby grow suffering from extreme respiratory distress. Baby Preston was captured on film by Varley taking ‘agonal gasps’ – the body’s final, terminal reflex when the brain is starved of oxygen. Instead of calling 999 or performing CPR, Varley stood over the dying infant and filmed him for over half a minute. Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley then waited roughly 90 minutes after making the video before finally taking Preston’s unresponsive body to Blackpool Victoria Hospital. This video has been described by the press and media as a ‘trophy’, something often kept by sadistic killers so they can relive their crimes.

But shockingly, media files weren’t the only damning evidence recovered from the couple’s phones. In another sickening twist, multiple text messages to friends and family members were retrieved showing that the couple had been open with others about their feelings toward Preston. In one shocking text message sent to his sister, Varley had said that Preston was “dead meat today” for keeping him awake at night. On the morning Preston was taken to hospital with a broken arm, Varley messaged McGowan-Fazakerley the following: “Your son’s in hospital. I strangled him”. When this information came to light, a former school-colleague of Varley’s, Janet Gee, came forward and admitted that Varley had told her he was having “dark thoughts” about drowning or suffocating Preston. However, she never went to the police at the time and only admitted to knowing about Varley’s confession after Preston was murdered.

On June 12^th 2025 the couple were finally charged and remanded in custody. Both Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley pleaded not guilty to all charges. Their criminal trial officially began on April 20th 2026 at Preston Crown Court and was presided over by Mr Justice Turner. But there was one more twist in the case, a week into the trial, after hearing initial evidence, the original jury had to be discharged by Mr Justice Turner. The legal details regarding the discharge were subject to reporting restrictions, but it was noted in court that the distressing nature of the abuse and the graphic evidence had been too much for one of the jurors to cope with. A new jury was quickly sworn in and on April 27^th 2026 the case was restarted from the beginning. The subsequent trial lasted for seven weeks, concluding with unanimous guilty verdicts on June 15^th 2026.

Jamie Varley was found guilty of the Murder of Preston Davey (for the physical smothering of the 13-month-old), Sexual Assault and Assault by Penetration (for inflicting severe physical and sexual trauma on the infant), Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) (for previously breaking Preston’s arm), four counts of Child Cruelty (this covered the acts of physical and emotional neglect, including intentional sleep deprivation) and 13 counts relating to Indecent Image Offences (the making of indecent photos and videos of the child, and distributing them). John McGowan-Fazakerley was found guilty of Causing or Allowing the Death of a Child (for turning a blind eye to the ongoing danger in the home), one count of the Sexual Assault of a Child (for the independent sexual abuse of the infant) and two counts of Child Cruelty (for failing to seek medical attention during previous emergency episodes).

On 18^th June 2026 a sentencing hearing took place at Preston Crown Court, under recent legal reforms this was broadcast live by a number of media outlets. Varley was sentenced to a whole life term – meaning he will never be eligible for parole and will die in prison. McGowan-Fazakerley was sentenced to 25 years in prison, 18 years for causing or allowing the death of a child, and an additional 7 years to run consecutively for the severe child cruelty and sexual assault. Under current UK sentencing guidelines for these specific offences, McGowan-Fazakerley must serve a minimum of two-thirds of his sentence (16 years and 8 months) in physical custody before he can even be considered for release on license. Both men were added to the sex-offenders register for life.

Whilst the sentencing of Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley was broadcast live, what the public saw was heavily cut and censored. The live feed from the courtroom operates on a slight time delay allowing court officials to immediately cut the audio or video feed if a participant says something that violates reporting restrictions. Outlets are permitted to show the judge pronouncing the final sentence (e.g., the Whole-Life Order and the 25-year term), but they are barred from broadcasting the highly graphic, minute-by-minute descriptions of the physical and sexual trauma inflicted on the child. As of yet, the full sentencing remarks have not been made public, and no media outlet has fully revealed the level of the abuse suffered by baby Preston. However, for a Whole-Life Order to be handed down, it is likely that what Preston endured when in the care of Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley was far worse than what has yet been reported by the media.

This is a harrowing case which makes for difficult reading – but it is made so much worse because there were so many chances to save Preston’s life. Whilst the media have been quick to assert that these missed opportunities to save Preston were due to two factors: Firstly, in the case of the adoption agency and social services, the media claimed red flags were waved away largely due to problems created by stringent targets that led to understaffed departments being overworked. Secondly, in relation to the other catalogue of failings, the media has claimed that Varley was such a seasoned manipulator and was held in such high regard because of his position as a school safeguarding lead that he managed to fool medical professionals, hospital staff, social workers and the police. However, Preston Davey’s biological mother had another theory. Debbie Davey, spoke directly to the press explicitly stating her belief that social services had failed to act out of institutional political correctness – she said: “Social services might have been hesitant to take action when they saw Preston because they may have been accused of being homophobic”.

But Debbie Davey wasn’t alone in making this assertion. Senior sources close to the case acknowledged to the press that multi-agency professionals were “too ready to accept the couple’s narrative and too hesitant to intervene”. Media investigations and press reports highlighted that agencies may have suffered from what they describe as a form of “institutional paralysis” – in simple terms, professionals who should have ensured the safety of baby Preston were more worried that aggressively questioning a same-sex couple’s parenting capabilities, or looking too closely at complaints made about them could be misconstrued as bias or worse still; as discrimination. And considering that Adoption Now, Oldham Council, social services, doctors, paediatricians, NHS staff, NHS health visitors, a teacher at South Shore Academy and the police all failed to intervene when there were multiple serious red flags and even admissions of a desire to carry out violent acts upon a helpless baby, serious questions linger. But possibly the most illuminating revelation was that even after baby Preston’s multiple hospital visits and his growing list of injuries that increased in severity, social workers are on record sending Varley messages that reassured him of their support.

Whilst some will argue that this was all just coincidental and that different state bodies are underfunded, over stretched and due to a lack of coordination between different agencies, cases often fall between the cracks. But that doesn’t explain how Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were treated after baby Preston was murdered. Not only were they allowed to leave the hospital and return home before their initial arrest, but before they were finally charged, they spent nearly two years on such an incredibly relaxed form of police bail that they were not only allowed to move to a luxurious 5-bedroom detached property, but after their move they appeared to be unmonitored and were free to entice children onto their property with elaborate seasonal decorations. The Lancashire Police allowed two paedophiles who were under investigation for the murder of a helpless baby to move house, hide in plain sight and to continue to interact openly with children.

Lancashire Police, Oldham Council, Social Services and the NHS all operate under a strict statutory policy of equal opportunity, inclusion, and proactive engagement with the LGBT community. This policy and the biases of those working within the aforementioned agencies have created an institutional climate that is deeply focused on diversity, inclusion, and avoiding anti-LGBT bias – as such frontline staff who all came into direct contact with Preston Davey suffered from what is known as “overcompensation”. Whether out of an active fear of being labelled prejudiced or homophobic, or because of their own political biases, officials failed to display standard “professional curiosity” and treated Preston’s increasingly severe injuries as the result of innocent domestic accidents. Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley fit the exact ‘progressive profile’ that adoption agencies and public bodies are eager to champion. Because the couple presented an idealised, professional image, multi-agency staff essentially became complicit in their crimes as they were more interested in protecting the couple they had put on a pedestal than they were about protecting the innocent child they were abusing.

Some will now want to draw a line under this – and some will point to the lengthy sentences handed down to Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley and claim justice has been done. Whole life terms are rare in Britain, and the media’s focus on the issue of the couple’s sentencing has steered discussion away from the fact that Amy Shepherdson, Helen Magee, Janet Gee and a number of council officials, adoption agency staff, social workers, doctors, nurses, NHS staff and police officers all bore witness to what was going on or received reports that indicated Preston was being abused, yet they all chose to turn away and ignore the obvious truth. Whether that was because they were scared to speak out due to institutional policy that forbids the criticism of members of the LGBT community, or because they made a conscious decision to ignore what was going on because of their own political biases doesn’t matter. All of those who ignored what was happening to baby Preston should also face justice; whether that be the loss of their livelihoods or because they too must face criminal trials. A just society would not allow them to walk away from this case without consequence, what’s more, none of those who turned a blind eye to this abuse should ever be allowed to be in a position of trust involving children again.

Two paedophiles – Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley – wished to acquire a baby boy to abuse, and the state not only allowed this, but gave them access to a catalogue of children to browse through from which they could pick their ideal victim. Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley picked Preston Davey, a healthy, happy and well-adjusted boy who was then plucked from the embrace of a loving heterosexual couple and placed in the hands of his homosexual abusers. Once in their care every state agency and official who saw the increasingly severe wounds inflicted on baby Preston waved away those injuries in order to protect the men inflicting them. Every person who attempted to sound the alarm was silenced, every report of abuse hit a brick wall, and even when Varley admitted to his dark desires those who worked for the state chose not to report his confessions. Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley were poster-boys for progressive policy and as a result, the state was happy to hide the abuse of a helpless baby boy in a desperate attempt to prove a political point. And those who stood by and did nothing to help him are not only still free, but they remain in positions of authority entrusted with looking after the wellbeing of other helpless children. Preston Davey wasn’t just murdered; he was sacrificed in the name of progressive policy.