UK court finds man guilty of sexual abuse and murder of adopted baby

Artist drawing of Jamie Varley in court for the murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey. Photograph: Elizabeth Cook/PA View image in fullscreen Artist drawing of Jamie Varley in court for the murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey. Photograph: Elizabeth Cook/PA UK court finds man guilty of sexual abuse and murder of adopted baby Schoolteacher Jamie Varley described as ‘serial manipulator and a serial liar’ in Lancashire court A schoolteacher described as a “serial manipulator and a serial liar” has been found guilty of sexually abusing and murdering a baby he and his partner had adopted. Jamie Varley, 37, of Staining, Lancashire, had denied being responsible for the death of 13-month-old Preston Davey but after an eight-week trial was found guilty of the baby’s murder, as well as two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm and sexual assault of a child. Varley was also found guilty of 13 counts of taking indecent photos or videos of a child, one count of distributing an indecent photo of a child and one count of making an indecent photo. Varley, a head of year at a secondary school, had adopted Preston with his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, a financial sales manager, who was found guilty of allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and sexual assault. The baby, whose birth name was Elijah, died as a result of acute upper airways obstruction, caused by either smothering or an object or objects being inserted into his mouth. His death came at the end of four months during which he was “ routinely ill-treated, sexually abused and physically assaulted ”, the prosecutor Peter Wright KC had told a trial at Preston crown court. The trial heard that Preston’s body had shown evidence of more than 40 separate injuries, which the pair had claimed he sustained from falling over and dropping toys on to his head. Preston Davey died as a result of acute upper airways obstruction. Photograph: X/Lancashire police Wright insisted during the trial that Preston had died while being assaulted by the men, who had begun the process to formerly adopt him four months prior, and that the story told by Varley to police that he had died due to drowning in the bath was merely a cover story created by the pair after Preston died in hospital. The jury were shown images of the 13-month-old that the prosecution claimed were evidence that he had been sexually and physically abused, including a series of photos of the infant draped over the side of his cot. Karen Tonge, of the Crown Prosecution Service, described the case as “one of the most shocking and horrific cases I have dealt with in my career” and said that Preston had been “abused with sickening ease” by both men. “It is difficult to comprehend how the very people who should have loved him could inflict such sickening physical and sexual harm on an innocent child,” said Tonge. “No child should have to go through what Preston went through in the last four months of his sho