Preston Davey Trial

[PaddyDomino]

Hard to imagine the histrionic Varley remaining silent:

 

[Square Peg]

I posted this on the Real Life Crime thread, it's an interesting theory as to why the original jury was dismissed the other day.
The trial is due to restart on Monday, 27th April, at Preston Crown Court:
View attachment 3971343

I’m pretty sure it was evidence revealed on the stand last week by the social worker, in relation to Preston’s biological family. I thought at the time it was breaching confidentiality.

 

[Mycatismad]

Yes i am pretty sure it was 4 or 5 ish the video of him struggling to breathe and then I am sure he said at some point he bathes him around 5 aswell so all the times dont seem to be adding up.

Varley’s story is all over the place, it’s changed so many times. Also why was M-F barefoot too when they rushed the baby to hospital as soon as he got home from work?

 

[zogsmum]

Moment teacher who 'sexually assaulted baby' says, 'I killed him'

Jamie Varley, 37, was said have blurted out the comment after racing into the hospital with 13-month-old Preston Davey limp in his arms.

www.dailymail.com

do not click if you don't want to see images of Preston as he is taken to hospital

 

[owen2110]

Some of the updates today and yesterday made my stomach drop. That poor baby boy. I cannot even fathom the suffering he had to endure. Just devastating

 

[scantysandwich]

I’ve been trying to figure out the precise charges levelled at JV.

Two counts of assault by penetration - basically this seems to be the bare minimum of what can be proven. I’ll spoiler the rest for anyone who doesn’t want to read graphic descriptions.

Spoiler: Thoughts

He’s charged with assault by penetration because they know Preston was violated but they’re unable to categorically prove it was with a penis… it could have been an object. It’s virtually guaranteed to have been a penis, but they can’t prove it, so they have to use the lesser charge of assault by penetration instead.

As for the two counts, again, in all likelihood it was much more than two occasions, but as the only proof comes in the form of bruising to Preston’s throat and bottom, they can only proceed with two counts.

Is this correct?

I hope this has zero effect on the length of a potential prison sentence.

Assault by penetration isn’t a lesser charge, it’s just the mechanism.

 

[Rubyroo160]

Ahh I see this is a good point that the DNA evidence this morning was only the agreed facts. Perhaps there is more to come which they don’t agree upon.

 

[IGiveUp22]

Also, JMF's DNA on the cot:
View attachment 3988824

Thank you! I totally missed that bit. I hope they go into more detail about this. I think someone else said they’d only covered the agreed facts re DNA so I think this will be discussed further. I nearly posted earlier that if Preston’s DNA was found on any of the sex toys that would have been (one) of my smoking guns.

The pair of them are just monsters. It’s actually heartbreaking what they subjected that little boy to. How can people be so utterly disgusting and cruel and evil

 

[Emsie]

A few reasons why it is unrealistic, none of which are going to be popular on the thread;
• it is subjecting adopters/fosterers differently to other parents, this is discrimination
• the staff hours and cost for police/social services/whoever to trawl through someone's devices, the criminal justice system can barely function with digital scrutiny as it is
• people have the human right to privacy, there is no legal framework to demand that people who are not charged with a crime or under suspicion of a crime, hand over their devices to be checked
• how could police/social services/whoever be sure the person had handed over all their devices? You can't search people houses for no reason, so they could have other devices they haven't handed over

This is just off the top of my head, I'm no legal
.

I agree. Social workers are not digital forensic analysts.
And where do you draw the line? Do we interrogate couples because they might watch porn together?
Send each other images of themselves? I've definitely got images of my kids in the bath or running around the garden naked - just normal funny photos but without context what does that look like?

 

[Lolarose1994]

Came across an old post on Facebook with some older info. The neighbour is probably using a healthy dose of hindsight. It's too horrifying to think that Varley could so obviously have been that way and have got past SS, hospital staff etc?

Also, not to take away from what happened to poor innocent Preston. But given the name of his BM given here, and some of the deleted comments, has anyone googled Sarah Davey of Failsworth surely not. I know thats adding 1+1 and potentially getting 3. But this poor poor innocent soul never stood a chance, it's just too heartbreaking

I’m sure Sarah is his birth mum, looking on Facebook she also has a daughter who is older and she is still with the family, there are also posts from a man mentioning Preston being his baby boy and Sarah’s mum Debbie has also commented on it so this could potentially be his father? Not sure if I can post screenshots with names

Edited to add I think Preston’s father is also her daughters father too

 

[maytoseptember]

Find it strange how he says he didnt like bath times (prob because he realised thats when the sa was going to happen)

I’ll be honest and say I doubt a baby of that age quite had the reasoning skills to associate baths with SA. It’s not impossible I guess, but unlikely. Plenty of babies and toddlers go through phases of hating baths, especially hair washing.

 

[Jayneh2020]

Something I clocked on The Trial podcast was that were said to be delighted they got given a boy. My immediate thought was what the outcome would have been if it was a girl. Would they have abused her too? Would it have been SA?

Clearly being gay they have interest in boys, i mean he took a picture of his genitals and his own and sent it to his partner saying thats my boy... my guess they adopted purely for their own sexual gain. I wonder if they specifically asked for a child of certain age, sex ? Would this have happened if he was school age and able to talk i very much doubt it. Used a vulnerable poor defenseless baby they both need hanging !

 

[PaddyDomino]

This is an interesting article from 2018, talking about the case of Elsie Scully Hicks
It's written anonymously by a child protection social worker:

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...ug/23/social-workers-adoption-system-failings

This case is very similar to Leiland James and Preston's, the adoptive parents changed her name, she was taken to hospital with a broken limb, and there were nasty texts from one adoptive parent, complaining about her and calling her all sorts of names

I found this part of the article interesting, it explains why there's such positive bias towards adoptive parents:

 

[YellowTail]

Yeah cos in one of the interview he was asked was that your legs and he said no comment so could they have been John's legs and filmed on Jamie's phone

I know it everyone’s right to remain silent during police interviews, but I find it telling that JV chooses to answer some questions and remain silent when asked others. I am interested in how many wet towels were found, how many items of Preston’s clothes were found with vomit on them and how many soiled nappies were recovered. There may be blood traces in the the nappy of an abused child. The bath seat is puzzling, I hadn’t connected the dots about the bath seat being in the sink suggests Preston wasn’t in the seat that day, but JV mentions more than once about throwing the seat in the sink. JV hunting for underwear, be interested to know if there were any clean pairs of pants in JV’s drawers.

 

[TheMiceInTheShed]

That’s a good point. I think things like this will be what the defence focus on. They’ve already tried to say the bruising to Preston’s throat could have been caused by the anaesthetist. Possible, but highly unlikely, scenarios to explain away the lies. They’ve also tried to discredit the orthopaedic guy saying he misheard the BS explanation for Preston’s elbow injury when JV was changing his story. They just need to make the jury doubt the prosecution’s version of events. As someone just reading about the trial I don’t think JV can get out of this but I’m not sure about JMF. I think he’s guilty but the charges he faces are more difficult to prove. We already know their life was essentially the JV Show and I guess they’ll go with JMF being under the thumb and a bit clueless as to what was really going on. There was some report of a third hand conversation where JV had rung up the school to speak with a colleague after they’d been arrested (bizarrely giving a false name) and some subsequent conversation referenced sperm on a towel, maybe trying to explain away evidence related to the JMF SA charge? It’s got to be predictable really serious harm to get a murder conviction, the baby had been filmed and also hospitalised before as a result of JV actions so that one is more clear cut. But COAD the jury would have to be sure JMF knew exactly what was going on and did nothing to stop it. As an aside, I can’t imagine how JV mum must be feeling. To think your son is settling into family life and given you a beautiful little grandson who you’ve loved and cared for, to finding out he’s a beast who tortured that little boy. Obviously my sympathies are mostly with the foster and birth families but still.

That’s a good point. I think things like this will be what the defence focus on. They’ve already tried to say the bruising to Preston’s throat could have been caused by the anaesthetist. Possible, but highly unlikely, scenarios to explain away the lies.

Then it comes down to likelihood.

1 highly unlikely thing happening - well, awful, - who could have expected that? . . . but sh*t happens

2 highly unlikely things happening - ooookay . . . but, you know, 1 chance in a million etc . . . highly improbable but not quite impossible

3 or more highly unlikely things happening - we're not stupid!

Especially added to the lies and story changes and FB posts and videos of a suffering baby.

RIP Preston. I hope justice is done.

 

[zogsmum]

I wonder what their endgame was? Abusing a baby? The baby would eventually be able to talk and tell those around them what they were doing. I don’t get what they thought would happen. Makes me wonder if they knew he would die and they would end up in jail.
Ian Watkins didn’t adopt to do this so wasn’t continuously doing it to the same child. But these two adopted a baby to do this to who would eventually reveal what was happening as they go older.

 

[Itchy of Itchington]

To be murder the intent has to be to kill or do serious harm.

"The suspect's act must be a substantial cause of the death, not necessarily the sole or principal cause" from

Homicide: Murder, manslaughter, infanticide and causing or allowing the death or serious injury of a child or vulnerable adult | The Crown Prosecution Service

www.cps.gov.uk

The CPS will have made the decision on the charges and feel fairly confident in them. What could Varley claim "I was only sexually abusing him but didn't mean for him to die" nope. It is the same as if you push someone and they fall under a train. You might not have meant then to die but your actions caused the harm.

 

[SamPam]

He is wearing white trainers in the video of him on the phone outside, he's sitting on a wall while JV is pacing and JV is barefoot. I think some of the witnesses got the men mixed up.

Just looked, he's definitely wearing white trainers when he's sitting outside. I wonder if he put them on at some stage after arriving, the HCP says she reported the lack of footwear as a concern and didn't understand why they had their shoes in the car (probably to give a sense of urgency).

 

[AladdinSane]

I think I can see which way Varley's defence is going and it will be interesting if he is questioned as a witness to see if this holds up. Witnesses are already agreeing that he was very dramatic, when questioned by his barrister. I suspect they're going to say "see how he jokes about killing John etc, it's just his dramatic sense of humour. Doesn't mean he killed this baby".

I read it as a man who wants to be the centre of everyone's attention. Taking the baby to a hotel to meet his colleagues (because I suspect the initial placement didn't allow him to have a load of visitors). The drama about overspending on the prom. I've had two maternity leaves and I visited my office once to show off my baby who was 8 weeks at that point. I then gave not one shiny shit about what was happening.

The text that's made me the most angry is that he refers to baby Preston as not being independent. FFS! How independent are 10 month old babies? Never mind ones born a month early with trauma and attachment issues and possible effects of alcohol and drug abuse in pregnancy. The baby was just another prop of the Jamie Varley show by the sound of it

I'm curious what the prosecution will have on his partner. From what I'm seeing at the moment, he seems to care more about Preston, and more of a bystander with everything else. I'm not sure. I think the pictures charge will also be (and I cant think of a better word so please forgive me) interesting as how much of it will be distribution/taking indecent images compared to parents communicating. I imagine thats what the defence will be. Urgh its just horrible.

 

[maytoseptember]

I dont understand the timer though I mean if it is 4to6 minutes for oxygen to starve or whatever then surely that would be on his Google searches cos not everyone would know this. They are just sick

I’m not sure he was using the timer during the SA. I agree not everyone would know how long it takes to suffocate. I wonder if he was using it to time Preston’s respiration rate? I’m not really crediting the man with that much intelligence (or indeed care for Preston’s wellbeing) but that might account for why he opened up the timer app on his phone - to assess how serious his breathing difficulties were.

That still doesn’t explain why he didn’t seek help until JFM came home though.