Preston Davey Trial

[Nelly's mum]

V seems to think his fake wailing will fool the hospital into not alerting the authorities. He is used to getting attention and sympathy when he goes all dramatic and it worked up to this point, classic DARVO moves.

I'm sure JV was completely freaking out at the hospital - he knows what he did to Preston, that he will found out and that his life will never be the same again - he was upset for himself, but JMF actually seemed to feel more shock and grief for Preston, JV didn't even want to go to him or hold his hand when he was dying.

JV was waffling on about getting his pjs and his pj top but he was vague or 'no comment ' at other times - he was focussing on an irrelevant detail to avoid saying what he actually did to Preston.

@PaddyDomino made an interesting comment about killers mentioning baths and showers, I'd not picked up on this before but a few cases come to mind - psychologically, I guess it is a killer 'cleansing' themselves and 'washing away' their guilt

 

[LittleMy]

That poor baby, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever read.

 

[Padparadascha]

It can be read several ways can’t it - firstly a kind of dramatic, self-piteous kind of thing. Oh poor me, I was a model adoptive dad but now I’m going to get done for neglect, it was an accident but it was my fault because I left him in the bath, I killed him, boo hoo.

But there’s also a subtext of admitting the lesser crime of neglect, to deflect from the SA and the act of suffocation that likely killed Preston.

Thats my take on it. The admitting those things was deflection and an invitation for the staff to fawn and insist that no, he's a great daddy and he did everything right. To insist this wasnt his fault. The addition of him dropping in his profession and safeguarding was cynically in support of this.
It worked with the previous hospital visits and had the SW sending heart emojis ffs.

 

[PaddyDomino]

Seeing the hospital admissions written out like that is mind blowing, how did his arm not raise an immediate red flag?! The prosecutor said "a part of the bone was caused to sheer off", how many here with children have had them have an arm fracture at that age? So infuriating it wasn't investigated further.

"Earlier episodes of respiratory obstruction"
When his arm was broken was when he should have been removed from them
No wonder JV thought he'd keep getting away with it

 

[PaddyDomino]

I'm sure JV was completely freaking out at the hospital - he knows what he did to Preston, that he will found out and that his life will never be the same again - he was upset for himself, but JMF actually seemed to feel more shock and grief for Preston, JV didn't even want to go to him or hold his hand when he was dying.

JV was waffling on about getting his pjs and his pj top but he was vague or 'no comment ' at other times - he was focussing on an irrelevant detail to avoid saying what he actually did to Preston.

@PaddyDomino made an interesting comment about killers mentioning baths and showers, I'd not picked up on this before but a few cases come to mind - psychologically, I guess it is a killer 'cleansing' themselves and 'washing away' their guilt

Yes, I can't remember the exact reason how bathing and showering is a red flag for SA but washing away guilt is probably one link.
Possibly SA happening in the bath and shower in a domestic situation too?
I remember he said how a lot of mentions of "doors" in a statement is a red flag for domestic violence and it was due to a door opening being a precursor to the abuse and I think doors slamming as well.

 

[SadieBagels]

When did they actually move? Because they are taking him to Blackpool Vic but they lived in Grimsnargh which I would have thought it closer to RPH?

 

[Tanley]

I hadn’t heard about this awful case before this trial.
Does anyone know how long it took for these POS to be charged.
This poor baby died in July 2023, nearly three years ago.
Was the drowning in the bath story initially believed, or were arrests made for neglect straight away?
Did the men get a chance to go home and remove evidence, delete searches etc?
Have they been held in custody all this time?
I guess I just want to know if they nearly managed to get away with it
And I wonder if they are still in a relationship or if they are going to turn on each other in court.

 

[IGiveUp22]

I was thinking after someone posted on here about the escalation again and that surely JV must have been viewing indecent images of children. I think if they had found that, there would be further charges? My understanding of the current charges are they relate to the photos he’s taken of Preston and sent to his partner - maybe more will come out but I think if they’d had found a collection on his computer, that would be acknowledge in the charges/opening by the prosecution as it is a separate offence in itself. On the surface, unless anything else comes out, it does genuinely appear like he just suddenly decided to start SA…potentially at the same time his partner went back to work.

 

[lauren96111]

When my daughter was younger and nearly walking she fell and hit her head on the dining room chair. A complete accident and we were made to feel like we had hurt her. I know the hospital were only doing their job in our case but how has that hospital not raised all her injuries and frequent visits. 3 in 3 months!!!
The staff on them shifts should also be investigated!

 

[TheMiceInTheShed]

Seeing the hospital admissions written out like that is mind blowing, how did his arm not raise an immediate red flag?! The prosecutor said "a part of the bone was caused to sheer off", how many here with children have had them have an arm fracture at that age? So infuriating it wasn't investigated further.

I've worked both in hospitals and the community, but I am not a doctor so may be wrong about this, however I believe that it takes comparatively (for the size of the bone) great force to break a child's arm or leg at this age - their bones and soft and bendy - usually they have to be twisted with some force to break them (obviously if I'm wrong, please correct me). I can't imagine the degree of force that would be required to "sheer off" a piece of bone.

The break alone should have had the police involved, surely, let alone the "sheering off".

To me this is like the way the McCanns got leeway when a couple from a tower block would have been put through the mill for leaving their children alone.

 

[Upintheair83]

Yes, this is what I think, he was genuinely panicking in the hospital because he knew what he'd done and he knew he was caught.
It's so interesting what you say about leakage because he says I'm done, I'm going to hell, I effing killed him, he even says that he's going to be done for child neglect and that is exactly what his initial arrest was for.
He's literally telling us what he's done and what is going to happen!
I remember there was an FBI statement analyst called Peter Hyatt, he used to analyse the interviews and statements of Madeleine McCann's parents, and he used to say if a person tells you what they've done, believe them!
Another thing I remember him saying is that there are red flags in statements, for example, the number three is the liar's number and if it appears a lot in statements it's a red flag.
Another flag is a lot of talk about bathing and showers, it's a red flag for sexual abuse, and when I saw the amount of times Preston is mentioned as being in the bath, it did remind me of what Peter Hyatt had said.

Peter Hyatt was so interesting, would be great if he was still around to analyse.

 

[Ray_of_Sunshine]

Imo, Varley must have had a sexual interest in babies/children, I don't understand how you can go from a point of no pweirdo tendencies to sexually abusing a baby in just 4months. If this is correct then presumably he had previously accessed csa images, if this is the case I guess it would come out in the trial.

The obvious conclusion is that anyone adopting/fostering/working with children should have their phones and laptops checked, but this is unrealistic and would never happen, also parents don't face this scrutiny.

I'm just thinking out loud really - I don't know how pdfs can be prevented from accessing children, as they obviously lie and conceal that they are a pweirdo, especially the likes of Safeguarding Lead and head of year JV

Why is it unrealistic? There is intense vetting and security checks on people wanting to join the police. I believe that includes checking their digital footprints. I think the same should apply to anyone wanting to adopt as a minimum. It’s intrusive but necessary

 

[IGiveUp22]

Why is it unrealistic? There is intense vetting and security checks on people wanting to join the police. I believe that includes checking their digital footprints. I think the same should apply to anyone wanting to adopt as a minimum. It’s intrusive but necessary

I don’t necessarily think it’s unrealistic but I think it’s hard to ‘draw the line’ which is something I posted a while back. Obviously if there is evidence someone has viewed indecent images of children then that is clear cut but what about other types of porn? What I personally would consider gross and inappropriate wouldn’t be the same for others and it also doesn’t automatically mean someone then will go ahead and commit SA of a minor.
Then you’ve got the whole other side of the coin of the dark web - a lot of this material is accessible freely on there, a lot of the ‘traffic’ to these sites isn’t easily traceable. Same with the chat room type stuff. You’d have to have digital forensic experts attached to social services to be able to perform vigorous checks - we already know how underfunded most social services are anyway so I think that is where it comes under the ‘unrealistic’ umbrella. I think sadly, checks like these would put off good parents willing to adopt which isn’t in the children’s best interests as I don’t think these types of checks would actually manage to prevent anything like this happening again.
Abusers, by nature, are manipulative and hide their tracks very well. It would be easy for a person to delete their search history or hide it during the process and then continue afterwards.

I think for me, it’s the checks after that should be more stringent. Any hospital visit should be treated as deliberate harm until confirmed otherwise and I think they should have a secondary social worker that reviews cases with fresh eyes to try prevent the element of bias/closeness to the family.

 

[Lyla001]

Why is it unrealistic? There is intense vetting and security checks on people wanting to join the police. I believe that includes checking their digital footprints. I think the same should apply to anyone wanting to adopt as a minimum. It’s intrusive but necessary

Totally agree with this and you would think, (expect) that this would be in place. However in reality I can't ever see this happening. Sadly , there aren't the resources / money or 'man power' for these agencies to facilitate enhanced checks ,like checking digital footprints etc. Of course this shouldn't be 'unrealistic 'but unless the government throw a tit ton of money at this , nothing will change.

 

[Jojo]

My inquisitiveness got the better of me & I tracked down their house on Right Move. Based on a few details already out there, like the road name, foster mum describing it as “beautiful, newly renovated”, Varley’s description of the oval/egg bathtub next to the glass shower partition, plus the few photos of Preston confirmed to have been taken inside the home, which match up to the listing photos.
Looks like they sold it less than a month after Preston’s death, then the next inhabitants put it up for sale less than 2 years later.

House Price History

View house price history reproduced using Land Registry and Rightmove data.

www.rightmove.co.uk

 

[Tofino]

Some thoughts about JMF after reading the reporting.

His story about when he arrived home matches JV. Preston was being sick upstairs and JV started CPR in the car. He’s heard repeating this story to someone on the phone outside the hospital on the video that’s been published (I think it’s his mum).

JV is also saying in the police interview that CPR started in the car, that Preston was awake when JMF got home.

But then in another police interview JV says he started CPR in the house.

and one consultant has said in his experience, the condition Preston was in, he had stopped breathing far longer than the ten minutes the men claimed.

We are only in the sequence of events and witnesses in attendance stage so I would expert the prosecution would want to have a medical expert view on this. If this is true, which I expect it is, it means JMF is lying as well as JV about what the situation was when he arrived home. But the speed of leaving for the hospital makes me wonder if they had discussed this on the phone beforehand as they had spoke (although I can’t recall the timings).

Also I’ve noticed that so far the prosecution have shown evidence of the photos and videos relating to cruelty and indecent images from JV to JMF but there has been no mention of what, if anything, JMF said in response. If he said nothing at all to any of these, is he just cleverer than JV and knows not to put anything in writing?

Example here - I’d be horrified if a partner of mine sent me this. So what did JMF say or do about it? There are reports of SO many videos and photos of this poor baby’s genitals and bottom. It’s not the slightest bit normal.

Spoiler: Sensitive

 

[PaddyDomino]

My inquisitiveness got the better of me & I tracked down their house on Right Move. Based on a few details already out there, like the road name, foster mum describing it as “beautiful, newly renovated”, Varley’s description of the oval/egg bathtub next to the glass shower partition, plus the few photos of Preston confirmed to have been taken inside the home, which match up to the listing photos.
Looks like they sold it less than a month after Preston’s death, then the next inhabitants put it up for sale less than 2 years later.

House Price History

View house price history reproduced using Land Registry and Rightmove data.

www.rightmove.co.uk

Oh that's interesting, I did wonder if they had actually gone ahead with moving house.
Varley was arrested at the hospital, would he and McGowan have been allowed to return to the house at any point, I wonder?

 

[MmmB777]

Some thoughts about JMF after reading the reporting.

His story about when he arrived home matches JV. Preston was being sick upstairs and JV started CPR in the car. He’s heard repeating this story to someone on the phone outside the hospital on the video that’s been published (I think it’s his mum).

View attachment 3985458

JV is also saying in the police interview that CPR started in the car, that Preston was awake when JMF got home.

But then in another police interview JV says he started CPR in the house.

View attachment 3985468

and one consultant has said in his experience, the condition Preston was in, he had stopped breathing far longer than the ten minutes the men claimed.

View attachment 3985478

We are only in the sequence of events and witnesses in attendance stage so I would expert the prosecution would want to have a medical expert view on this. If this is true, which I expect it is, it means JMF is lying as well as JV about what the situation was when he arrived home. But the speed of leaving for the hospital makes me wonder if they had discussed this on the phone beforehand as they had spoke (although I can’t recall the timings).

Also I’ve noticed that so far the prosecution have shown evidence of the photos and videos relating to cruelty and indecent images from JV to JMF but there has been no mention of what, if anything, JMF said in response. If he said nothing at all to any of these, is he just cleverer than JV and knows not to put anything in writing?

Example here - I’d be horrified if a partner of mine sent me this. So what did JMF say or do about it? There are reports of SO many videos and photos of this poor baby’s genitals and bottom. It’s not the slightest bit normal.

Spoiler: Sensitive

View attachment 3985489

IMO JMF is 100% guilty of exactly what JV is. He just wasn’t participating when it killed Preston.

 

[Tofino]

I was thinking after someone posted on here about the escalation again and that surely JV must have been viewing indecent images of children. I think if they had found that, there would be further charges? My understanding of the current charges are they relate to the photos he’s taken of Preston and sent to his partner - maybe more will come out but I think if they’d had found a collection on his computer, that would be acknowledge in the charges/opening by the prosecution as it is a separate offence in itself. On the surface, unless anything else comes out, it does genuinely appear like he just suddenly decided to start SA…potentially at the same time his partner went back to work.

There are 14 separate charges for image related charges alone.

Definitely more to come and I wonder what’s meant be pseudo image, is that AI?

Also worth remembering ‘counts’ isn’t the number of photos. They group multiple types together.

The jury have got to come to a verdict on 25 separate charges for JV alone!

 

[Tofino]

IMO JMF is 100% guilty of exactly what JV is. He just wasn’t participating when it killed Preston.

Agree and I think he was just the more intelligent one of the pair and has hid it better.

I think JV might have been more aggressive in his abuse due to anger towards Preston though.

This is nothing compared to what was to come but calling him annoying after the very first sleep over? And wanting to put him in the field of cows?

A friend described him as dramatic and flamboyant but it meant nobody took his awful language towards a particularly vulnerable baby concerning.