Jamie Varley has been sentenced to a whole life order for the murder of Preston Davey, his adopted son, who was aged just 13 months at the time of his death. This means Varley will never be released from prison. In addition to the murder charge, Varley was found guilty of two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault of a child, 13 counts of taking indecent photos of videos of a child, one of distributing an indecent photo of a child, and one of making an indecent photo. Varley’s partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, was sentenced to 25 years for allowing the death of a child, two counts of child cruelty and one count of the sexual assault of a child.
Many will hope that evil men like Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley suffer ‘prison justice’
The details of the case are horrific. Preston was a healthy, thriving baby when he was adopted by the two men. In the four months he lived with them he was taken to hospital three times before he was killed by Varley. On one occasion, he had breathing difficulties and had suffered a seizure; on another, he had a broken arm. For reasons which must be discovered by an inquiry, no one in authority intervened. Baby Preston was left with the men who tortured and raped him, one of whom would murder him. The post-mortem showed that on the day Preston died he had likely been anally and orally sexually assaulted by Varley.
