Baby was sexually abused before being killed by man adopting him, court told | UK news
A boy was “regularly mistreated, sexually abused and physically assaulted” before he was killed by a secondary school teacher who adopted him, a jury has heard.
Teacher Jamie Varley, 37, and her partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, were in the process of adopting Preston Davey.
Varley faces murder charges along with 25 other charges related to sexual and physical abuse of the baby. McGowan-Fazakerley is charged with allowing the death of a child and four other offences.
On the first day of their trial at Preston crown court, prosecutor Peter Wright KC said the Blackpool couple were “apparently in a stable and loving relationship”.
But he said the evidence would show they were “wholly unsuited to the role of adoptive parents”.
“Unfortunately this truth only became clear to Preston Davey when it was too late,” he added.
Wright said it was a “highly emotionally charged case.” “It is bound to evoke strong emotions in everyone who hears the details of this case,” he said.
The baby was placed with the couple in April 2023, when he was nine months old. Four months later, he was taken to an emergency room suffering from a heart attack.
Despite the intervention of medical teams, the baby died. The autopsy showed that the cause of death was acute upper respiratory tract obstruction, most likely caused by asphyxiation with a hand or soft cloth or by having an object or objects inserted into the mouth.
Wright said: “This tragedy, however horrific, was not the result of a terrible but unforeseen accident or natural phenomenon.
“Evidence gathered during the inquest into his untimely death revealed a much worse pathology.
“We say the evidence shows that he was murdered by one of the people to whom his welfare was entrusted: one of the parents to whom he proposed adoption.
“We say the person responsible for killing Preston Davey is the defendant, Jamie Varley.”
Wright said the jury will hear evidence that Preston, who was in the defendants’ custody, “was routinely mistreated, sexually abused and physically assaulted in the final months of his short life.”
He told jurors to “steel themselves” as images were shown on screen after the child was sexually assaulted.
Varley also took numerous photographs and videos of the abuse, the jury was told.
The prosecutor said the jury will see videos on Varley’s phone of an apparently unattended baby “boiling and sliding” in the bathroom for 14 minutes, while Varley “did not intervene once and was just recording… not speaking.”
The jury heard Preston was found to have suffered nearly 40 traumatic injuries at the time of his death. His injuries included 30 external bruises.
The baby had bruises on his buttocks, which medical experts said were “consistent with an open-handed slap,” Wright said. He had bruises on his forehead consistent with “a small child’s head being held.”
Varley denies murder, manslaughter, two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, causing grievous bodily harm, sexual assault of a child, 13 counts of taking indecent photographs or videos, distributing an indecent photograph of a child to other defendants and one count of making an indecent photograph.
McGowan-Fazakerley denies authorizing the death of a child, three counts of cruelty to children and one count of sexual assault on a child.
The trial continues.
