A teacher accused of sexually abusing and murdering a baby boy he was adopting with his boyfriend told a nurse 'you’ll think we’re abusing him' when she spotted a bruise on his forehead, a court heard today.
Preston Davey had been taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital by Jamie Varley, 37, and John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, with an apparent fever a few weeks before his death.
Today agency nurse Nikki Wilson told Preston Crown Court that during a conversation with the couple she made a remark about the bruise and one of the men responded: ‘You will think we’re abusing him.’
The nurse said she couldn’t remember which of the couple made the comment but later agreed she had indicated it was Varley when she was interviewed by police when her recollection was fresher after Preston’s death.
Ms Wilson said the couple had showed her a video on a mobile phone of the 12-month-old pulling a toy activity station onto himself to explain away the bruise.
Although she didn’t formally report any concerns, she admitted she discussed it with her colleague because the film had made her feel ‘uneasy.’
Ms Wilson said: ‘I became uneasy at the video because, for me personally, when you see something tipping over you would automatically go to stop it being tipped over, I didn’t hear any sound when they played it to me, and I would have run to the child to stop him.’
On the 23-second clip, which was played to the court, Varley could be heard saying, ‘Oopsie…it’s ok,’ after the wooden toy toppled onto Preston’s head.
Preston Davey pictured by his adopted father, Jamie Varley, 37, the morning after his first sleep over at his new adopted 'daddies' home. Varley is accused of sexually abusing and murdering Preston
Former secondary school teacher Jamie Varley, 37, denies a total of 25 charges
Varley's partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, has pleaded not guilty to five charges
Ms Wilson said she remembered the ‘abuse’ comment being made because the men said they had previously been to hospital with Preston. The jury has been told it was the third time the pair had been to A&E with the infant in just three months.
Each time, including when Preston’s left arm was put in a cast for a fractured elbow, the couple explained away the infant's problems and bruises and no safeguarding issues were raised.
The court heard that the couple passed ‘robust’ vetting procedures before being approved to adopt Preston, who was formally placed in their care, aged nine months, on April 3, 2023.
But Peter Wright KC, prosecuting, told the jury that, on the evening of July 27, 2023, McGowan-Fazakerley, a sales rep, came home from work to find Varley, who had taken 12 months off his job teaching textiles at a local academy school to look after the baby, trying to resuscitate Preston and ‘panicking.’
They drove the infant, who was in cardiac arrest and not breathing, to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, but he could not be saved.
Forensic pathologist Dr Alison Armour, who carried out a post-mortem, found the tot had suffered 40 internal and external injuries – including severe bruising to the back of his throat – before he died.
Today she told the jury, of seven women and five men, that Preston had died of an acute obstruction to his upper airway.
This was caused either by his nose and mouth being covered by a hand or soft object, such as a pillow, and/or because an object had been inserted into his mouth, she added.
Preston Davey died after suffering abuse and was found to have 40 injuries, a jury was told
Dr Alison Armour dismissed Varley's claims that Preston could have had a seizure and died because he inhaled his own vomit
Nick Johnson KC, defending Varley, suggested Preston could have died after inhaling his own vomit after suffering a seizure.
But Dr Armour dismissed this as a possibility. She told the court there needed to be a ‘reason’ for Preston being sick and pointed out that even the pathologist instructed by Varley did not disagree with her and had ‘no issue’ with acute upper airway obstruction as the cause of death
The expert also insisted that none of the bruises and other internal injuries Preston suffered could have been caused accidentally by hospital medics when they tried to save his life.
Dr Armour said that, during her examination of Preston's body, she discovered a ‘most unusual’ and ‘extensive’ bruise to the very back wall of his throat, the like of which she had never seen before in her 39-year career.
Asked whether this injury could have been caused when doctors at the hospital tried to intubate – or put a breathing tube down his throat to aid his breathing – during their resuscitation attempts she denied this could be the case.
Mr Johnson asked: ‘If the bruising could have been caused by medical airway instrumentation, do you agree your conclusion of acute upper airway obstruction would be weakened?'
Dr Armour replied: ‘Therein lies the problem, you used the word if the bruise is caused by medical airway instrumentation, it’s my position it was not.’
She said that – even in a small child - the area where the bruise was found was ‘nowhere near’ the airway where the anaesthetist placed a metal medical instrument to help her insert the breathing tube, and there were also no cuts or abrasions to indicate it had come into contact with the front of Preston’s throat.
Dr Armour also said Preston did not have any bruising around other ‘marks of medical intervention’ – such as the needle puncture marks in his legs and groin caused by the insertion of cannulas for the administration of drugs – because blood has to circulate or be pumped around the body for a bruise to form and Preston had no heartbeat.
Mr Johnson suggested that medics managed to get Preston’s heart beating twice during the 50 minutes they spent performing CPR – once for 13 minutes and again ‘fleetingly’ before he died, which could have allowed time for a bruise to form.
Dr Armour agreed there would have been some degree of ‘blood flow’ but it was insufficient to cause such a bruise to his throat.
‘For me to logically say to this court that this bruise was caused by intubation with that extensive bruising, that size of bruising, but no bruising to any other resuscitation mark, I cannot accept the logic of that proposition put to me,’ she said.
Dr Armour said that – for the same reason – 14 bruises ‘consistent with fingerprint pressure’ that she found in tissues under Preston’s skin on his chin, head and scalp would only have been caused by doctors handling him to put a face mask on if they had used ‘excessive force.’
Similarly, she also dismissed the idea that a bruise on Preston’s back, close to his left armpit could have been caused by Jamie Varley attempting CPR before he got to hospital or a paramedic performing chest compressions as he carried him into A&E because he had ‘no heartbeat’ at that time.
Mr Johnson also questioned whether a bruise, seen on a photograph of Preston naked in a paddling pool, could have been caused by him falling on a cup or a toy.
But Dr Armour disagreed and again confirmed that there had been no disagreement between herself and the defence pathologist that the bruise was a human bite mark.
Dr Armour was also asked whether internal injuries she found by examining tissue samples from Preston’s pelvic organs under a microscope could have been contaminated or altered in ‘processing.’
But she dismissed the idea and told the jury that some of them were possibly caused by 'forcible penetration' and post-mortem photographs showed parts of Preston’s anatomy to be ‘abnormal.’
Varley denies murder, manslaughter, two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault of a child, 13 counts of taking indecent photos or videos of a child, one of distributing an indecent photo of a child, to his co-accused, and one of making an indecent photo.
McGowan-Fazakerley denies allowing the death of a child, three counts of child cruelty and one count of the sexual assault of a child.
The trial continues.