How justice finally caught up with sick couple who murdered two-year-old Liam Fee
EVIL Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi Fee tried to blame the tot's death on another child but are now caged for life
AN entire courtroom struggled to contain its contempt as monster mums Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi Fee were finally handed life sentences for the murder of toddler Liam Fee.
But it was those who knew little Liam best, including his devastated father, who rode the biggest wave of emotion as the nightmare finally ended.
No more his memory being besmirched, no longer other children being forced to relive his final moments. No more pain, no more suffering.
Except for the huge emptiness now left by his passing and the giant hole in the hearts of a community
that is left to wonder how - and why - the killing of little Liam could have happened.
If twisted Trefla, 31, and Fee, 28, showed little emotion as their original guilty verdicts were returned,
there was a flush of fear as they looked ahead to a life behind bars.
Just like the terror they inflicted on a child who should have been laughing and rejoicing in the discovery of a world still learning to know him.
A boy found dead at a home in Glenrothes, Fife, on March 22, 2014.
The cowards who neglected and abused him throughout his short life – who murdered him - certainly
were not brave enough to own up.
They denied it throughout a seven-week trial which only prolonged the agony for his family and friends, and dragged the bravest of brave children into court, where their evidence played a crucial part in seeing the pair found guilty.
If not for them, fighting through the trauma of their own suffering at the hands of the duo, then who knows what the outcome might have been.
In their desperation to avoid being caught and stay together, the monster mum’s even blamed the children for Liam’s murder.
It was the most grotesque of lies.
And despite deficiencies of the system that let little Liam down, there can surely be no shortage of praise for the specialist police liaison officers who spent months with the child witnesses helping to coax the darkest of truths out into the light.
During the harrowing trial, the court heard that the injuries that killed Liam were similar to those seen on a road smash victim.
A post mortem carried out on the tiny toddler's body revealed he was killed by blunt force trauma to his body which caused a cavity in his heart to “burst”.
If there could be any mercies from it all, expert Dr Paul French said the toddler’s death would have been “rapid”.
But it is hard to see how any good can come from such tragedy, not least when considering how the little boy’s body was covered with more than 30 injuries and saw both his leg and arm fractured twice in a lifetime of cruelty.
Jurors were shown an image of his thigh bone snapped in two and given details of his multiple injuries, including a fractured arm.
He also had bruising to his scalp, eyes, nose, jaw, back, shins, hands and feet.
Several members of the jury were reduced to tears as a police video showing the toddler's body was viewed by the court.
Prosecutor Alex Prentice QC told the court the women were guilty of “unyielding, heartless cruelty” and had shown “callous indifference” to Liam's suffering.
Whoever delivered the fatal blow, they were in it together.
They concocted a story that claimed on the night Liam died his mum had been out and Fee had put him to bed early, but when she went to check on the toddler around 7pm she had let out a “blood-curdling scream” when she discovered his lifeless body.
It was then the blame was laid on another child, claiming the youngster had strangled Liam.
And an ambulance wasn't called until shortly before 8pm.
In the 999 call, which was played to the court, a distressed Fee could be heard sobbing and saying “oh
god, oh god” and “please, please” as she claimed she was attempting to perform CPR on Liam with the help of the operator.
Fee said: “Can you please hurry up, my baby's not breathing.
"I think he's dead, he's not breathing, he's white."
And she told the female operator another young boy had ”strangled“ Liam.
She said: ”He held his mouth closed, he said he held his mouth closed and his neck because he was crying, because he was trying to hurt him.“
But their lies simply did not stand up to scrutiny and detectives set about trying to get to the truth.
Neighbours told how the women had tried to shrug off Liam’s injuries down to autism. They then
realised they hadn’t seen him outside for months.
Specialist officers found internet searches on both Fee and Trelfa's mobile phones including ‘can you die from a broken bone?’ made in the days before Liam died.
The day before the two-year-old's body was found, other searches were made for ‘can wives be in prison together?’ and ‘can lesbians who are married hot (sic) to jail together?’.
The search history in Fee’s phone contained a search for ‘how do you die of a broken hip?’ and a Yahoo
Answers query asking: “Why does a broken hip sometimes lead to death?”
As other children in the house were quizzed, one told how he was imprisoned in a homemade cage.
Another spoke of being tied naked to a chair in a dark room where snakes and rats were kept.
And the images of torture began to form.
The recriminations of why Liam was allowed to die, or who could have played a part in preventing it will
play out over the coming months and perhaps even years.
But the only justice in a tale with too many victims already, is that Liam’s killers are no longer free to continue to inflict such suffering.
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