After yet another high-profile child murder, the question must once again be asked: How many warning signs can be ignored before someone is held accountable? The case of Preston Davey exposes a system in which the fear of being perceived as intolerant appears to outweigh the willingness to protect vulnerable children.
Disclaimer: No. This article is not about the claim that good parents can only be found in heterosexual nuclear families. It is about the fact that people’s fear of appearing intolerant or homophobic has now become greater than their concern for children’s lives and well-being.
A small chubby boy with curly red hair and blue eyes looks into the camera and laughs. A little cherub. Photos of Preston Davey have circulated on social media in recent weeks because of a tragedy that should never have happened: Preston lived only 13 months. Then he was murdered by his adoptive parents, teacher Jamie Varley, 37, and his partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32.
Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley were convicted last Monday at Preston Crown Court. Photo: Lancashire Police.
Preston’s four months with the homosexual couple were marked by brutal physical and psychological abuse and monstrous sexual assaults. Several of the assaults had also been documented by the couple themselves. The material was so disturbing that several jurors had to be replaced after viewing it. The autopsy report revealed more than 40 injuries on the little boy’s body, and the sexual abuse had been so violent that his internal anatomy had been altered.
It is incomprehensible. Diabolical. Evil in its purest form. And worst of all: it never had to happen.
Many knew – no one acted
Preston’s suffering and death could easily have been prevented. There were many warning signs, many opportunities for officials responsible for Preston’s welfare to react and stop the abuse—if they had only dared to see.
The eight-week trial that concluded at Crown Court last Thursday revealed that the boy had received hospital treatment on three occasions during the four months he lived with Varley and McGowan-Fazakerley for injuries that were “not consistent with the explanations provided.” Varley had also told a colleague that he had “dark thoughts” about drowning or suffocating Preston. Representatives from the adoption agency conducted follow-up visits, and in addition several social workers regularly visited the family to ensure that Preston was doing well with his new parents.
Yet despite repeated physical injuries, and despite a social worker noting two weeks before the murder that Preston had a “very sad face and cried a little,” no one acted.
Then came July 27, 2023.
At 4:45 p.m., Varley recorded a 35-second video on his phone showing Preston in “extreme respiratory distress” and in need of resuscitation, but Preston was not taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital until 6:30 p.m. A team of paramedics, nurses, and doctors attempted to revive Preston for 50 minutes, but he was pronounced dead at 7:18 p.m.
Cause of death: suffocation by an object forced into his mouth. Prosecutors argued that the homosexual couple had used Preston as a sex toy, so I do not wish to think about what that “object” might have been.
Preston is not alone
Even if Preston’s suffering and death had been a unique event, it would still have been an unimaginably tragic catastrophe. But Preston is not alone.
In the United Kingdom, the murder of Preston Davey is merely the latest in a series of child murders that have occurred despite social services and police receiving reports that the children involved were being harmed.
A recent analysis by the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) found that cases of child abuse and neglect had increased by 106 percent over the past five years, and modern legislation is helping pedophiles and sadists: if you are a convicted pedophile, you may not adopt—but no one will stop you from buying as many children as you want through surrogacy…
Unfortunately, the situation does not look much better in Sweden.
During the month of June alone, the following cases became public: A father with roots in Turkey attempted to stab his three children to death on a road outside Nynäshamn. The man was shot dead by police while attacking the children. Police had responded to reports of threats and violence at the family’s home on several occasions, but authorities failed to act.
In Alvesta, a father originally from New Zealand shot his two daughters with a nail gun before committing suicide. One girl suffered serious injuries, while the other sustained life-threatening injuries. The father shot the girls after their mother filed for divorce. Days before the attempted murders, the mother had unsuccessfully pleaded with social authorities for help because she feared for her children’s safety.
Six-year-old Albin, whom Document has previously written about, was taken into police custody and separated from his older brother and mother. Against his will, Albin is to be placed with his father, who has abused both the children and their mother, stomped Albin’s rabbit to death, and declared that he intends to take Albin to Turkey to circumcise him and “wash everything Swedish” out of the boy’s brain.
A woman in Biskopsgården, Gothenburg, has been charged with grossly causing another person’s death after her five-year-old daughter died in an apartment fire in February. The police investigation showed that the mother had left the girl home alone on at least 42 occasions. When the fire broke out, the five-year-old—who had been adopted from Russia a year earlier—had been alone for 19 hours. Police, healthcare personnel, preschool staff, and social services had previously raised alarms about the girl’s situation—without result.
All of these cases have one thing in common: there were many warning signs, and employees within government agencies and healthcare had numerous opportunities to intervene—but they chose not to.
How is that possible?
The fear of normality
Let me present my theory: all this suffering, all these abused, raped, and murdered children are the result of responsible individuals looking the other way. And no, this is not because these individuals are incompetent or evil people. They see. They understand. But they choose to create excuses because they are immersed in woke values and therefore do not dare to act on their natural instincts.
Even though doing so would save lives.
What governs us is the fear of being perceived as normative. Normal. Because normality is considered bad, backward, outdated, and right-wing extremist. We have learned this through our academic educations, shaped by postmodernism—and if the lessons of norm criticism did not stick there, they have been reinforced through supplementary courses provided by employers.
Those working today in social services, law enforcement, family courts, healthcare, churches, adoption agencies, and the judiciary know the rules: the most important thing is to be positive toward “multiculturalism” and “alternative family structures.” Officials who have attended mandatory anti-racism conferences and LGBTQ certification programs know they are expected to welcome everything exotic, different, and “non-Swedish.”
An official is therefore expected to be accepting both of “cultural expressions in child-rearing” and of homosexual men as parents.
No one must be excluded. No one must feel offended. Tolerance and understanding must be shown—even ad absurdum.
The consequences of tolerance
The consequence of this boundless and often blind tolerance is that people are reluctant to criticize immigrants’ child-rearing methods or ask questions about why two homosexual men want to buy a child—through adoption or surrogacy. The reason is simple: doing so could lead to accusations of racism or homophobia and result in reprimands, lost career opportunities, or reassignment.
Statistics and news headlines suggest that non-judgmental tolerance is often prioritized above protecting the child.
British report: 250,000 white British girls systematically raped by Pakistani Muslim gangs
Perhaps the child tries to run away from home or speaks of violence and coercion? It is probably just a vivid imagination, exaggeration, or teenage rebellion. Does the child have bruises or repeated broken bones? Surely nothing unusual—children get hurt. Is the child afraid of being kidnapped, subjected to genital mutilation, or forced into marriage? Of course the child should go “home” on vacation—it will probably be fine…
Instead of acting, those responsible—in Blackpool, Rotherham, and Alvesta—choose to look away and cross their fingers. It will probably be fine. And perhaps it will be, nine times out of ten. But the tenth?
The tenth might be named Preston Davey.
Addendum: Jamie Varley, 37, has been convicted of murder, and his partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, has been convicted of allowing the boy to die. Varley will never be released. Perhaps he will die in prison as an old man, but more likely his fellow inmates will ensure that a more Old Testament form of justice is carried out long before then.