{"id":482865,"date":"2026-05-13T16:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482865\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:38:18","slug":"murdered-infant-had-bruises-on-the-back-of-his-throat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/482865\/","title":{"rendered":"Murdered infant had bruises on the back of his throat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following report contains details of a distressing nature.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

An infant who died only months after being given over to the care of two gay men had bruises on the back of his throat, a jury has heard.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Baby Preston Davey was 13 months old when he was pronounced dead at Birmingham\u2019s Victory Hospital on the 27th of July 2023.<\/p>\n

Former teacher, Jamie Varley, 36, of Grimsargh in Lancashire, is charged with the murder of the baby, in addition to a series of serious sexual and child cruelty offences.<\/p>\n

His boyfriend, John McGowan-Fazakerley, 31, of Grimsargh in Lancashire, is charged with allowing the death of a child, in addition to child cruelty and sexual offences. Both men deny all charges.<\/p>\n

The men had been preapproved as adoption candidates; however, the child suffered a number of injuries while in their care, including a fractured elbow.<\/p>\n

A jury at Preston Crown Court heard on Tuesday that when Varly brought the unconscious infant to the A&E department at Victoria hospital on the day he was pronounced dead, he claimed that the child had drowned after being left alone in a bath for three to four minutes; however, a coroner reported that the child was subjected to deliberate asphyxiation and had been the victim of \u201cabusive trauma, non-accidental injuries and sexual abuse\u201d and had not drowned.<\/p>\n

The infant\u2019s cause of death was determined to be the result of an upper airway obstruction, leading to his collapse by a deliberate act of smothering, or from an object or objects being inserted into his mouth.<\/p>\n

When Varley was asked why Preston, who was a healthy child, had died four months after being placed with him, and if he had killed the child, he said, \u201cI have not done it. I will fight you til the day I die. I know you are wrong. I have not done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court heard that when Varely was asked why he had images of the child\u2019s genitalia on his phone, he told police, \u201cUnlike you, I don\u2019t think about his genitals 24\/7.<\/p>\n

Asked why he had an over-14-minute video of the child visibly \u201cdistressed\u201d and \u201cwhimpering\u201d in the bath, and why he had not helped him, he said, \u201cI was keeping an eye on him. He\u2019s not distressed. There was no intent to hurt him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are making a mountain out of a molehill. It\u2019s totally innocent, it\u2019s ridiculous. You have got it now, as if I\u2019m a bloody pervert,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n

Varley is charged with one count of murder, one count of manslaughter, two counts of assault by penetration of a child under 13, Five counts of cruelty to a person under 16, one count of inflicting grievous bodily harm, One count of sexual Assault of a child under 13, ten counts of taking indecent photographs of a child, One count of distributing indecent photographs of a child, Two counts of possession of an indecent pseudo image of a child, One count of possession of an extreme pornographic image.<\/p>\n

McGowan-Fazakerley is charged with one count of allowing the death of a child, two counts of cruelty to a person under 16, and one count of sexual Assault of a child under 13. A previous hearing of the case revealed that his DNA was found close to the baby\u2019s cot.<\/p>\n

The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following report contains details of a distressing nature.\u00a0 An infant who died only months after being given…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,211150,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,76805,5,211151,42652,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-482865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-gay-adoption","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-murder-trial","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-preston-davey","24":"tag-sexual-abuse","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116568254513849967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}