Most evil child killers – ‘plaything’ Preston Davey, child dumped in Lidl bag and three,400 ‘child farm murders’
Murdering a baby is perhaps the most evil act a human can commit. British cases have fascinated the public and generated endless headlines, documentaries and morbid curiosity.
Details of the brutal murder and torture of 13-month-old Preston Davey shocked the nation to its core. The innocent tot’s adoptive father Jamie Varley was sentenced to a whole life order last week for abusing the boy physically, sexually and emotionally before murdering him. The 37-year-old teacher only had the boy in his care for four months.
Other horrifying British baby killers include Ben Butler, Constance Marten and infamous neonatal nurse Lucy Letby – who murdered seven infants and attempted to kill seven more. The most lethal of all Britain’s baby killers is probably Amelia Dyer, who is thought to have been responsible for the death of as many as 400 infants in the Victorian era.
Your Daly Star has compiled a list of Britain’s most abominable baby killers. However, the details of these gruesome crimes are not for the faint of heart.
Jamie Varley
Preston Davey was just five days old when he was taken from his mother put into the care of Oldham Council in 2022. The first nine months of his life were happily spent with foster parents before he was placed in the care of adoptive couple Jamie Varley and John McGowan-Fazakerley in Blackpool.
The tot was routinely ill-treated, sexually abused and physically assaulted while in their care for just four months. He suffered 40 traumatic injuries, which were laid bare in a court case that left even the most senior prosecutors shocked.
Preston Crown Court heard the tot was treated as a “plaything”. He was routinely sexually assaulted and physically abused by the couple. One Video filmed by Varley shows a sickening incident in which Preston was lying on a bed, struggling to breath.
Prosecutors said that came after a sexual assault that caused an obstruction in his airway. Preston had injuries to his mouth, throat and bottom, with parts of his anatomy deemed “abnormal”. The injuries consistent with sexual abuse, the court was told.
The cause of Preston’s death was determined to be acute upper airways obstruction by an object or objects inserted into his mouth. Disturbing indecent images and footage of Preston’s abuse, some of which “cannot be unseen”, the court was told.
Police retrieved multiple photos of Preston captured four days before his death during a sexual assault, the court was told.
Preston is pictured alongside his beloved teddy bears, hanging over the upper rail of his cot, his neck positioned on the bar with his legs in a “frog like” stance, appearing asleep or unconscious.
Liquid drips from his mouth, his tongue jutting out and his lips blue from oxygen deprivation. The photographs are too disturbing for police to make public.
On July 27, Preston was found “submerged in a bath” and taken to hospital, where Varley is seen wailing dramatically as he tries to portray a distressed caregiver. But it was all a sick act. Preston was dry and there was no evidence he had swallowed water.
Drowning was ruled out when tests on Preston’s body were carried out. Forty injuries, including signs of sex abuse, were found and the sick pair were charged.
Varley, 37, was convicted at Preston Crown Court of murder, child cruelty, sexual offences and indecent images relating to 13-month-old Preston Davey. McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was convicted of allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and sexual assault.
Varley was told he will never leave prison as he was handed a whole life order while McGowan-Fazakerley was sentenced to 25 years.
The evidence heard in the seven-week trial was so traumatic jurors on the trial were excused from doing jury service again for life.
Killing of ‘Baby P’
Peter Connelly died at the age of just 17 months with over 50 injuries inflicted on his tiny body. He was known as ‘Baby P’ due to legal reasons.
The innocent tot’s mother Tracey Connelly was jailed at the Old Bailey in 2009 for causing or allowing the death of her 17-month-old son Peter at their home in Tottenham, north London, on August 3, 2007.
Connelly tortured her son to death almost 19 years ago sparking outcries across the country in one of the most well-known child abuse cases the nation had ever seen.
Baby P suffered horrific injuries at his home including a broken back, a fractured shin bone, a ripped ear, a missing fingernail and a tooth knocked out to name just some.
Connelly was initially released in 2013 but was recalled just 18 months on for selling naked pics online in 2015. Connelly made three further parole bids in 2015, 2017 and 2019 but all were rejected before a final, successful bid in 2022 found she posed a low risk of re-offending.
Constance Marten
Constance Marten was once a high-flying socialite with string Royal connections. That was before her 16-month old baby was found dumped in a Lidl bag in Brighton.
Marten and her rapist partner Mark Gordon went on the run with their youngest Victoria in early 2023 after their four other children were taken into care. Police launched a nationwide hunt after their car burst into flames on the motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester.
Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51, travelled across England and went off grid sleeping in a tent on the South Downs where baby Victoria died. After seven weeks on the run, the defendants were arrested in Brighton, East Sussex.
Following a desperate search, police found their baby dead amid rubbish inside a Lidl bag in a disused shed nearby. Victoria’s remains were too badly decomposed to establish the cause of death.
The prosecution said she died from hypothermia in the cold and damp conditions inside the flimsy tent or was smothered. The defendants claimed their daughter’s death was a tragic accident after Marten fell asleep on her.
A jury in their retrial found Marten and Gordon unanimously guilty of manslaughter in July 2025. They were both sentenced to 14 years over the death of their baby Victoria.
Lucy Letby
Lucy Letby has the grim distinction of being Britain’s most prolific serial killer in modern times following her conviction for murdering seven infants at the Countess of Chester Hospital in August 2023. The 35-year-old also attempted to murder seven other infants.
She is now locked up serving serving multiple whole-life sentences at HMP Bronzefield. The former neonatal nurse, who has always protested her innocence, killed defenceless new-born babies by injecting them with air, poisoning them and tempering with their feeding tubes.
Despite multiple murder convictions, letby’s case has proved to be controversial with many people coming out and claiming she is innocent.
Amelia Dyer
The ‘most prolific’ serial killer ever to operate in Britain is Amelia Dyer. The widowed nurse is believed to have killed as many as 3,900 infants during the mid-1800s.
The evil woman offered a secretive kill-for-hire service to parents of newborns at £10 per killing. Dyer’s modus operandi involved strangling the babies and disposing of their bodies in the River Thames, with estimates suggesting she claimed up to three lives per week.
Her 25-year killing spree ultimately came to an end in 1896 when she was caught and sentenced to death. Although relatively unknown compared to other infamous British serial killers, Dyer is believed to hold the grim record as the UK’s most prolific murderer.
Dyer, a native of what is now known as St George, Bristol, initially made her living as a midwife. She soon discovered that many young women were desperate to part with their newborns, and she saw an opportunity to profit from their desperation.
Dyer turned to baby farming – charging a hefty £10 to murder infants and dispose of their bodies.
She placed an advert in her local paper which read: “Married couple with no family would adopt healthy child, nice country home. Terms, £10 – Harding care of Ship’s Letter Exchange, Stokes Croft, Bristol.”
In reality, this meant that for a fee, she would take the child, strangle it, wrap it in brown paper along with a brick, and toss the body into the Thames.
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