{"id":642276,"date":"2026-06-16T20:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/642276\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T20:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:45:10","slug":"murdered-preston-daveys-dad-tells-of-anguish-at-vigil-for-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/642276\/","title":{"rendered":"Murdered Preston Davey&#8217;s dad tells of anguish at vigil for son"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The biological father of murdered Preston Davey has attended a candlelit vigil in memory of his son and told how the baby was subjected to months of &#8220;terror at the hands of a monster&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gary Nolan was speaking as family, friends and well-wishers gathered to pay tribute to Preston on what would have been his fourth birthday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 13-month-old died in July 2023 at the hands of teacher Jamie Varley, 37, his adoptive father from Blackpool, Lancashire. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Varley&#8217;s partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was also convicted of sexual assault, child cruelty and allowing the death of a child, with the pair due to be sentenced on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking as mourners and well-wishers gathered in Preston&#8217;s Flag Market, Nolan told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b006pfjx\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBC North West Tonight<\/a> of his heartbreak and anger at the convicted men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My son went through four months of terror at the hands of a monster,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;My son should be alive today on his birthday and not dead.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biological father of murdered Preston Davey has attended a candlelit vigil in memory of his son and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-642276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}