A schoolteacher described as a “serial manipulator and a serial liar” has been found guilty of sexually abusing and murdering a baby he adopted.

Jamie Varley, 37, of Staining, Lancashire, had denied the murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey and 25 other offences but was found guilty after an eight-week trial.

The head of year at a secondary school had adopted Preston with his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, a financial sales manager, who was found guilty of allowing the death of a child. The baby died as a result of acute upper airways obstruction by either smothering or an object or objects being inserted into his mouth.

His death came at the end of four months during which he was “routinely ill-treated, sexually abused and physically assaulted”, the prosecutor Peter Wright KC had told a trial at Preston crown court.

DCI Andy Fellows of Lancashire police, the senior investigating officer, said Varley had shown himself to be “a serial manipulator and a serial liar”.

More details soon …