Jamie Varley
Introduction
Jamie Varley, a 37-year-old secondary school teacher from Blackpool, was sentenced to a whole life order for the sexual abuse and murder of the 13-month-old baby boy he was adopting with his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley . The child, Preston Davey, died in July 2023 after roughly four months of physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the couple’s home in Staining, near Blackpool . Sentencing Varley at Preston Crown Court on 18 June 2026, Mr Justice Turner told him he must stay in prison for the rest of his life and would never be eligible for parole .
Background Information
Varley was a head of year at a Blackpool secondary school; McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was a sales manager for an asset finance company . Preston was born in June 2022 to Sarah Davey, a convicted killer jailed at 14 for the murder of a frail pensioner in 1998; he was taken from her five days after birth under an emergency care order by Oldham Council and spent his first nine months with foster parents Sandra and Paul Cooper, who remembered him as “joyful, so content and happy, with sparkly smiling eyes” . At nine months, an adoption agency placed him with the couple .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted: sentenced to a whole life order.
Over the four months Preston lived with the couple in Staining he was “routinely ill-treated, sexually abused and physically assaulted”, prosecutor Peter Wright KC told the court, which heard the adopting parents had treated the baby as a “plaything” . A post-mortem examination found 40 external and internal injuries, some consistent with “forcible penetration” and sexual abuse . In his final weeks he was taken to hospital three times — with a nosebleed and seizure, a rash and bruising, a fractured left elbow — and each time returned home in the couple’s care, their explanations believed .
On 27 July 2023 Varley rushed an unresponsive Preston to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, telling staff he had left the child in the bath for two or three minutes and returned to find him submerged; medics worked in vain for 50 minutes . The account did not survive examination — Preston’s hair was dry, there was no evidence he had swallowed water, and drowning was ruled out: a pathologist gave the cause of death as acute upper airways obstruction, by either smothering or an object or objects being inserted into the baby’s mouth . Ninety minutes before the journey to hospital, Varley recorded a video of the child in extreme distress, taking “agonal breaths”; police found images and videos on his phone used as evidence that he had been physically, psychologically and sexually abusing the child .
Both men denied all the charges but were convicted after an eight-week trial at Preston Crown Court — aborted and restarted with a fresh jury after some evidence proved too much for one juror . The jury found Varley guilty of murder and McGowan-Fazakerley guilty of sexual assault, child cruelty and allowing the death of a child .
Public Reaction and Consequences
Passing sentence on Thursday 18 June 2026, Mr Justice Turner said Preston had faced “unremitting abuse” and neglect before being killed by Varley during a sex attack. “It was you who did this. You murdered him,” he told Varley, calling a whole life order “a sentence of last resort for cases of the most extreme gravity” and adding: “This is a case of the most extreme gravity. You must stay in prison for the rest of your life. You will never be eligible for parole.” McGowan-Fazakerley was jailed for 25 years .
Preston’s biological mother and grandmother, Sarah and Debbie Davey, sat in the public gallery and sobbed throughout the hearing . In a victim impact statement read on her behalf, Sarah Davey said she lived with the “unimaginable pain of wondering” what her son went through. “Those thoughts do not leave me,” she said. “They are with me when I wake up, and they haunt me when I try to sleep.” “The reality of how he suffered is something I will carry for the rest of my life.” “I will never forgive you for what you did to my son and what you stopped him from becoming and achieving in his life.” Preston’s biological father, Gary Nolan, said in his statement: “Preston was the son that I never got to meet and now never will.”
DCI Andy Fallows, Lancashire Police’s senior investigating officer, described Varley as “evil” and “monstrous”, and the case as an “extreme example of sordid and wicked behaviour by completely remorseless human beings” that “truly shocked a nation” .
Current Status
Varley is serving a whole life order imposed at Preston Crown Court on 18 June 2026: he will never be released except in exceptional compassionate circumstances, and he will never be eligible for parole; McGowan-Fazakerley is serving 25 years . The independent child safeguarding practice review Oldham Council launched — paused during the criminal proceedings — has resumed, and will examine the handling of Preston’s safeguarding . The children’s minister has instructed independent experts to examine the case, looking at Oldham Council, the hospital trust and the adoption agency .
Impact on Their Career/Life
Varley’s teaching career is over: a whole life order means he will die in prison barring exceptional compassionate release . The NSPCC said important lessons must be learned and that the review must establish whether more could have been done to prevent Preston’s death . A spokesperson for Oldham Council called it “a particularly heart-wrenching and disturbing case” and welcomed the conviction of “the perpetrators of the sickening murder and abuse of an innocent child” .