The Tragic Life Of Preston Davey: Preston’s “brilliant life”
The Trial
The Crime Desk
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode Caroline and Liz have the cross-examination of Jamie Varley. He denies the prosecution’s claims that he abused Preston to punish him because he was struggling with being his main carer and resented his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, for working or being away.
He also denies making up a ‘cock and bull story’ about how Preston died to cover his tracks.
Instead he tells the jury that, although he made mistakes and was sometimes a little rough with Preston, he loved him and he had a brilliant life.
He says he did not cause Preston’s bruises, or sexually abuse or murder him.
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Presenter: Caroline Cheetham and Liz Hull
Actors: Benny Fiddimore
Editor: Chelsey Ranore
Creative Director: Caroline Cheetham
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
The Trial series uses actors and some voices generated by AI. Their words are taken as verbatim from the official court transcript.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the trial UK, the tragic life of Preston Davy. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm Caroline Cheatham and I'm Liz Hall. |
| 0:13.3 | Today on the podcast we've got what happened in court when Jamie Varley faced hours of forensic questioning. He was accused of abusing his adopted son Preston, |
| 0:25.4 | physically, sexually and psychologically, to punish him because of a building resentment that his |
| 0:31.3 | partner, John McGowan for Zachley, was working or away. He was told he made up a fiction that Preston accidentally drowned in the bath, |
| 0:41.1 | but he didn't realise the content on his phone which showed bruises, |
| 0:45.4 | alleged cruelty and alleged sexual abuse would be his undoing. |
| 0:50.4 | He was accused of going too far on the day Preston died, |
| 0:56.6 | of killing him by somehow obstructing his airway, and then of buying time to make up a cock and bull story. |
| 1:01.7 | He was told Preston was his plaything, a little boy in distress, who was resigned to his fate. |
| 1:08.3 | But Jamie Barley pushed back on all the allegations. |
| 1:11.8 | He said Preston was loved. |
| 1:13.4 | He was cared for. |
| 1:14.7 | And he'd never, ever been abused. |
| 1:17.5 | Welcome to episode 11, Preston's brilliant life. |
| 1:21.4 | We'll be back in a second. |
| 1:47.7 | Yeah. So welcome back to the podcast. Before we get started, our usual warning. Some of the content in today's episode is distressing. So please do be aware if you're listening to this with children |
| 1:53.1 | in the room. It might be quite difficult to hear some of the content. There's an eye I recording |
| 2:00.2 | this on Friday morning. |
| 2:01.5 | The trial's actually having a day off today, |
| 2:03.8 | and that meant by lunchtime yesterday, so Thursday, |
| 2:09.0 | Jamie Varley had finished giving his version of what he says happened, |
... |
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