Moment teacher who ‘sexually assaulted and murdered baby he was adopting’ tells hospital medics, ‘I killed him’
A teacher accused of abusing and killing the boy he tried to adopt told hospital medics: ‘I killed him,’ the court heard.
Jamie Varley, 37, was said to have blurted out the comment after rushing to hospital with 13-month-old Preston Davey, limping in his arms.
Jurors were today shown CCTV footage of the moment Varley arrived at Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s emergency department on the evening of July 27, 2023.
The footage also shows her boyfriend, 32-year-old John McGowan-Fazakerley, following her closely.
It was stated that Varley, who was wearing red pajamas and had her head in her hands, was ‘hysterical’ and begged the medical staff, ‘Don’t let her die, please don’t let her die.’
A senior doctor told Preston Crown Court Varley said: ‘I killed him.’
Paramedic Simon Crabb said sales representative McGowan-Fazakerley was “calmer… but there was still a look of terror in her eyes”.
Varley, a textile teacher and prefect of a secondary school, is accused of sexually assaulting Preston twice earlier that day, causing his death.
Jamie Varley was captured on CCTV carrying Preston Davey to the Emergency Department at Blackpool Victoria Hospital in July 2023.
As a paramedic carried Preston to hospital, Varley and his partner John McGowan-Fazakerley followed.
Preston Davey was photographed by his stepdad Jamie Varley the morning after he slept in his new adopted home for the first time.
While Mr Crabb sat in the ambulance with a colleague, he and McGowan-Fazakerley rushed to the hospital to help, carrying a ‘limp’ Preston wearing only a nappy.
Mr Crabb said one of the men, understood to be Varley, told him he could see with his own eyes that Preston was not breathing and that he was “very unwell”.
The court heard the unit was ‘extremely busy’ and there was no room available to treat the boy who had a heart attack, so he and nurse Rosanna Briggs placed him on a table and immediately tried to resuscitate him.
‘The man in the red blouse was hysterical,’ said Mr Crabb.
‘I talked to him and he said, ‘I just left him alone for three or four minutes, he sat in his chair in the bathroom, I took a shower, he climbs, he climbs.’
‘He also told me: “Don’t let him die, please don’t let him die.”‘
The jury was told Varley claimed Preston fell off the bath seat to put on his pajamas and returned a few minutes later to find him face down in the bathroom.
But the prosecution says the autopsy did not match that version of events and a pathologist concluded Preston drowned and died from ‘acute upper respiratory tract obstruction’.
The jury was told medical staff managed to momentarily restore Preston’s pulse but realized he was in cardiac arrest again and could not be saved after around 45 to 50 minutes of CPR.
CCTV showed Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley following paramedics as they began treating Preston in hospital
Former secondary school teacher Jamie Varley, 37, denies the accusations
Varley’s partner, 32-year-old John McGowan-Fazakerley, also denies the charges against him.
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Doctors went to notify Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley, who were waiting in a nearby family room.
But the court heard Varley refused to accept what happened.
He ‘ran out of the room in distress’ and was ‘yelling and begging’ at paramedics to continue CPR.
Doctor Imran Ali said in his statement that Varley “touched the baby and begged him to wake up.”
He said he remembered himself saying: ‘I can’t believe this is happening, I won’t accept it, it’s my fault.’
The jury was also shown the electronic entry of Preston’s medical notes.
It was stated that Preston’s ‘family was there when we stopped… dad Jamie was still trying to give mouth to mouth’.
The notes said: ‘Jamie was screaming hysterically…John held his hand…Jamie refused.’
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 an indecent photograph or video of a child, one count of distributing an indecent photograph of a child to other defendants and one count of taking 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, which is expected to last six to eight weeks, continues.
