"I Dated Baby Killer Jamie Varley in College: From Fake Suicide Attempts to Outbursts of Rage... I Wish I Had Stopped Him Before He Adopted a Child"

FOR two years, a young boyfriend of evil Jamie Varley suffered a shocking campaign of mental and physical violence.

Charmed at first by the trainee teacher, he found himself being humiliated, beaten and controlled – and in his weakened state, he never felt able to call the .

Now the ex, who we are calling Adam to protect his identity, spoke of his trauma and regret – and he says he fears if he had sounded the alarm on Varley’s behaviour all those years ago then Preston Davey, the little boy adopted and later murdered by deranged Varley, could be alive today.

And our exclusive pictures show Varley looking fresh-faced during his time studying at Manchester Metropolitan University between 2011 and 2013.

Adam says: “My friends used to say to me ‘One day you’re going to have an argument and he’s going to stab you’.

“And I used to laugh, and I think nowadays, I wish I had taken it more seriously.

“I excused his behaviour and accepted his apologies but I look back on it now and think, ‘What on was I doing? Why did I ever put up with that?’

“I feel like in the times he was acting like a complete nutcase if I had blown the whistle on him and he had any sort of formal recognition about his behaviour like a police record or something, maybe that would have prevented him from being in a position to adopt.

“So I kind of feel like I should have done something.

“But it’s much easier to think that with hindsight. I was manipulated by him and so were lots of other people and professionals.”

Varley, 37, was after being convicted of the murder and sexual abuse of tragic Preston, who he killed just four months after adopting him in April 2023.

But more than a decade before that, he met Adam while the pair were studying and fell for him.

But Adam reveals that behind the image, the textiles teacher frequently exhibited his “Jekyll and Hyde” character and lost control any time he couldn’t get his own way.

During one row, Varley threw a mobile phone at Adam’s head and ripped a gold chain off his neck with such force that a decade later he still has a mark from it.

Adam also told how Varley once broke into his flat to argue with him and smashed up a watch when he realised it was a gift from his former partner.

Varley also once faked a suicide attempt following an explosive argument over eating a prawn during a meal and lay down in the road to prevent Adam from driving away after he ended the relationship.

Varley met Adam online and they went out for a drink in January 2011, with the “charismatic” trainee teacher charming him with his sense of humour and banter.

The pair began and shared a love of films, eating out and trips to the beach.

Varley also impressed Adam with his love for his family and doted on his nieces and nephews.

But Adam quickly realised that while Varley had a “flamboyant and fun side”, his demeanour would quickly change and become aggressive if he didn’t get attention or his own way.

On occasion, Varley would also show a violent tendency including one night when the pair were out in Manchester’s gay area.

They bumped into a former partner of Adam, who said that he noticed he was still wearing a watch he gifted him.

He recalls: “Jamie’s mood shifted and started to become very defensive and jealous.

“He asked to see the watch properly. I took it off to show Jamie and his reaction in the middle of the bar was to throw it to the ground, stamp on it smashing the glass and then proceed to throw it in the canal.”

The following morning Varley apologised but also said it was justified because he had kept a token from a past relationship.

The pair continued dating despite friends worrying they had become too full on too quickly.

“On his best days he was always very popular, polite,” recalls Adam. “He was very charming. He’d always try and win people over.

“My family took a real shine to him. He would come across as someone who would do anything for anyone.

“But the worst side of him was relentlessly argumentative and hostile. He could argue all day over the most pathetic things. His main concerns were public perception and image.

Adam said after one uni exam, he told Varley he was too tired to visit him in and would just come over to see him the following day.

Later that night when he returned to his student accommodation in Manchester’s Hulme area, Varley had driven drunk from Blackpool and climbed over a neighbour’s fence to try and break in.

“My friends and my housemates were really worried by his behaviour by this point,” Adam says.

“The argument continued and I told him he had crossed a boundary.

“He actually pinned me down against the bed and was just screaming in my face and telling me I had put on weight and was fat and ugly.

“He said something like ‘You might as well stay with me. Don’t ever leave me because no one else is going to have you’.”

Despite the abuse, the couple continued dating.

But a few weeks later, Varley also flew off the handle in a jealous fit when his mum Karen persuaded Adam to dance with her at a family wedding.

He remembers: “I got up dancing with her and he just sat there with a face like absolute thunder.

“He just did not like the fact that I wasn’t sat with him, keeping him entertained. I was giving my attention to someone else, even though it was his mother.”

Once they returned to the hotel room, Varley “exploded” and bounced a Blackberry mobile device off Adam’s forehead and snatched a metal chain off his neck, which has left him with a scar to this day.

Back at uni, Varley continued to manipulate Adam and even convinced him to see a doctor about his mental because that was to blame for their constant arguments.

Adam says: “He really enjoyed arguing and it was absolutely exhausting”.

On another occasion, Adam and his sister went out for dinner with Varley and tried to persuade him to eat a prawn, which he didn’t like.

Varley again exploded with rage and walked off back to Adam’s parents’ home, where he told them that Adam was a “f***ing c**t”.

He stormed off to bed and when Adam went to join him, he found him on the bedroom floor surrounded by pills that he had pretended to take in a staged suicide attempt.

Adam said: “I told him to get up and stop pretending to be unconscious because the pills were all on the floor rather than inside him.”

Varley responded by getting up, screaming at Adam and going to in another room.

The relationship began to break down and the pair spent time apart in third year as they both left Manchester to do work placements.

Another huge row ensued on New Year’s Eve when Varley visited Adam and he told him it was over.

But Varley coerced him into continuing the relationship, even though it was flawed.

While apart, Varley created fake profiles on in the area where Adam was living in an attempt to message him and test his loyalty.

He said: “He’d flirt with me through fake profiles and then see if I’d do anything. He went to a lot of effort – the profiles had friends and everything.

“I also got messages from other people saying he had been in contact with them and asking about me.

“It was getting a bit stalky and a bit creepy.”

Adam moved back to Manchester to complete his degree and Varley got back in touch and said he had changed and persuaded him to give it one more go.

But Adam decided he’d had enough.

In November 2013, he visited Varley at the South Shore Academy in Blackpool and told him it was over.

Varley reacted by lying in the road for 30 minutes to prevent him from driving off.

Adam says: “He’s lying there on the tarmac, screaming, refusing to let me reverse the car. Eventually I got him back in the house and calmed him down and then I did leave.”

After moving out of Manchester, Adam had no further contact with Varley. Then he saw a report saying he had been charged with Preston’s murder.

Adam says that even though he split with Varley a decade before Preston was murdered, he was left horrified, and wishes he had done more about his behaviour – in the hope that would have prevented social services from allowing him to adopt Preston.

He recalls: “I tried to find reasons that it couldn’t be the case but then I saw more articles and thought ‘Oh God, it is true’.

“And then when they started officially listing the full charges, I just feel sick because the reality kind of hit where I’m thinking there is a lot more to this. It was really daunting.”

Adam followed the trial at Preston crown court daily through media reports and said footage released of Varley lying on the floor screaming after being told Preston had died, and later appearing cold and calculated in police , showed the two sides of his personality.

He adds: “Seeing Jamie on trial was surreal. It makes you question every relationship you have and what kind of a judge of character you are.

“You see two sides of him there and that’s very much how he was. Jamie’s problem has always been that he thinks he is a better actor than everyone else does.

“My husband says I have definitely won the award for the worst ex, but he’s also said it’s clear that Jamie managed to manipulate and fool an awful lot of people.

“I think will end badly for him and I don’t think he’ll see a full-life sentence.

“I’m not sure he would be able to cope with that anyway.”