‘Should we bring back the death penalty?’ | FURIOUS reaction to Preston Davey’s murder

Thank you Tatiana. Welcome back to GB News Tonight with me your host Martin Dobrin. Now to start tonight's show we must of course issue a warning that this story contains content the viewers and listeners may find extremely distressing. Jamie Varley, a former teacher, has been sentenced to life in prison with no parole after the murder of his 13-month-old adopted son Preston Davey. He may also be subjected to sustained physical, psychological and sexual abuse. And also John McGowan Fazzacurley has been jailed for 25 years for allowing the death and sexual abuse of a child. Unfortunately this story does not end there however because GB News has also exclusively revealed that the head of the Children's Services of Oldham Council was gifted a 23,000 pound golden goodbye payment. Isaac Croson you've written an excellent article in the Daily Mail. Of course today Jamie Varley and John McGowan Fazzacurley have been sentenced but your article talks about Gerard Jones. Now he was the Managing Director of Children's Services at Oldham Council which oversaw the fostering arrangements of this tragic murder baby Preston Davey. And you've outlined something astonishing. This guy received a golden payoff. That's right I managed to uncover through going through the council's accounts a 23,000 pound sort of goodbye payment to this individual who as you say had a very powerful and influential position. And what kind of sums of money are we talking about? Well 23,000 pounds so quite a hefty payoff for what some people would say is a reward for failure. The payment also included he received 163,000 pounds pay and pension contributions in the year 2023-24 that's the year that Preston was murdered. And with any sort of child murder or what at the time it was an alleged child murder there's going to be serious questions to be asked of the council and it is his department. There have been calls for him to hand it back. There's been serious questions asked of him as well as to why he took it. Well that'd be the final insult. Well we've approached Oldham Council and Mr Jones for comments and previously Oldham Council said the payments to Mr Jones came after he took redundancy in 2024 following a quotes wider management review. Now there is no suggestion that his departure was related to Preston Davies case or that Mr Jones had any direct oversight or involvement in that case and an Oldham Council spokesperson has previously confirmed a safeguarding review will examine how Preston Davies case was handled and the council has said his thoughts remain with his family and others affected. But tonight we wanted to focus on this question. In this case the murderer was given the maximum sentence for his crime life with no chance of parole but still is that enough? Or do we now need to introduce a national conversation about bringing back the death penalty in cases like this? I'd like now to be joined by my guest and that's the criminal lawyer and the managing director at PCD Solicitors Marcus Johnson. Marcus always a pleasure to have your esteemed company. May I first begin by getting your reflections on this utterly grotesque case of the baby Preston Davies. You've worked on many many sexual abuse cases like this Marcus I believe and this even by what you've experienced is utterly beyond the pale. It is Martin. It's beyond words almost. It's difficult to actually say what's gone on here even to speak about the horrendous crimes. In fact a number of the news outlets will not mention what's actually gone on what crimes were committed because they are so extreme so awful to envisage. But this was a young very young baby and the abuse that's being committed against him is just horrific absolutely horrific. Marcus may I ask you in the broader point the sentence doled out Sir Michael Ellis the former Attorney General told me that perhaps only 70 people in the entire United Kingdom get have ever got or are serving at present life with no chance of parole. It's the most extreme punishment that can be doled out but is it enough? There's sure to be a conversation around bringing back the death penalty. There has and over the years there's been conversations about whether the death penalty should be brought back in extreme cases where you've got situations perhaps like this. I think many members of the like this. The concern that many people do have however with a death penalty is that it is so final if there are any mistakes are made they cannot be rectified. Whereas if it's a life imprisonment if new evidence comes to light if something changes I don't think it will in this case of course but in other cases then at least somebody could be released from prison. We've seen lots of miscarriages of justice over the years but when you've got evidence which is so strong so overwhelming perhaps it's DNA evidence perhaps it's confessions CCTV there is something which there is no doubt about the conviction then that may be appropriate then to consider what is the ultimate punishment of the death penalty whether that should be brought back in circumstances such as this. Because Marcus you raise an excellent point that modern evidential gathering as outpaced what happened in the past so we can be much more affirmative of irrefutability in certain cases not all but some and also I wanted to ask you another question Marcus Johnson you work in a lot of crown courts across the land and you've spoken before how the criminals themselves are changing often coming from different cultures where there are very different social norms is that also another factor if you come from a country where there are severe consequences for rape for paedophilia you come to liberal Britain where that doesn't exist might that mean that we need to revisit how we punish? I think we do we definitely need to revisit how we deal with punishment how we deal with the crime that the criminal justice system there's major faults within our system these sentences handed out to Jamie Varley and John McGowan are extremely very high sentences however even McGowan who was a convicted of allowing or causing the death of the baby received 25 years determinant sentence now he'll be out in probably 16 years just over 16 years and people may think that's just not long enough and in fact when I was just looking at the sentencing guidelines on that offence causing the death of a baby the sentencing guidelines believe it or not Martin you probably won't believe this actually start at one year imprisonment so it's possible that somebody can murder essentially can murder a baby and receive one year imprisonment that's where the sentencing guidelines start so I've said before I think you and I've spoken before it's very difficult in this country actually to get sentenced to prison and very very few sentences of people that do go to prison receive a long time in prison you mentioned there's only probably 60 70 80 whole lifers in the system and yet we have horrendous crimes being committed the difficulty and my concern I think people perhaps don't realize is that with this particular case these kinds of abuse situations are happening day in day out all the time around in this country around the world I've written about this and in fact even as we speak now if I was to go on to some of these sites where men congregate in chat rooms they are at the moment thousands of men talking about and sharing images of how they abuse children in the same way as this poor baby died this is happening all the time and yet we don't hear about most of those cases are not detected Marcus Johnson we have to leave with their harrowing stuff to hear but you know we have to talk about this thank you very much indeed that's the criminal lawyer and the managing director of PCD sisters Marcus Johnson