The Offender Database has reported that the deviant Lesbian Couple, Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi Fee, the Thornton Child Killers, who killed Liam Fee, may be getting out of prison soon, thanks to upcoming parole hearings.
Throughout his brief two-year existence, the child endured significant suffering inflicted by his mother and her companion. The trial revealed that the pair, Rachel and Nyomi Fee, perpetrated a series of abuses against two other young boys.
Following his testimony at the High Court in Livingston, Sean Catherall informed the BBC that he had previously considered Nyomi Fee to be his closest friend.
“I never imagined she was capable of such actions, particularly towards an infant,” he stated.
In December 2011, Rachel Trelfa, at the time, and Nyomi Fee relocated from Ryton, approximately eight miles west of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to Fife, following Rachel’s separation from the father of her infant son, Liam.
They resided at a Travelodge until early 2012, when they relocated to a property in Thornton, near Glenrothes.
The couple subsequently entered into a civil partnership, with Rachel Trelfa adopting her partner’s surname.
The abuse of Liam seems to have commenced after the relocation to Fife. They incessantly battered Liam until he could endure no more.
He passed away in a bedroom in the family residence on Saturday, March 22, 2014.
The trial heard a recording of a panicked phone call made that evening for an ambulance. Nyomi Fee was heard saying, “Can you please hurry up, my baby’s not breathing.
“I think he’s dead, he’s not breathing, he’s white.”
But she was already blaming Liam’s death on another child.
She goes on to say: “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.”
Doctors found Liam had suffered a ruptured heart from a blow or blows to his body. They also discovered double fractures of his thigh bone and arm. In total, they counted more than 30 injuries on his body.
Sean Catherall had not been in contact with Rachel and Nyomi Fee for some time. But they both stayed with him a few days after Liam’s death.
His account of that is chilling.
“They weren’t bothered,” he said.
“They were sort of laughing, joking that they were going to get sent to jail for neglect… saying ‘do you think we’ll get the same cell together’, stuff like that.”
Meanwhile, in Fife, a major police investigation was underway. Officers later found several objects hidden within a bed, which raised their suspicions. There was a metal frame, cable ties, ropes and a chain.
Eventually, the police had enough evidence to charge Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi Fee with Liam’s murder and a series of abuses involving him and other children. It had taken five months to bring the charges.
Det. Supt. Gary Cunningham, from Police Scotland’s East Major Investigations Team, explained the complexities of the inquiry.
“The level of abuse and neglect that has taken place over a prolonged period of time, we wanted to get out all the details on that,” he said. “We didn’t want to miss some of the additional charges that could be preferred against Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi.”
The discovery of ropes and a chain was also used as evidence.
Rachel Trelfa and Nyomi Fee’s trial got underway two years after Liam’s death.
For several days, the jury in Court 2 at Livingston High Court watched videotaped interviews with two young boys.
They had been in the house on the night Liam died. One of the boys was the child the Fees blamed for Liam’s death.
During several interviews, a specially trained police officer and a social worker sought to assure him that he was safe and not in any trouble as they tried to untangle his story.
It became clear that the boy had not strangled or suffocated Liam; he had put his hand over the toddler’s mouth several days before his death, but Liam had been walking and talking afterwards.
What also became clear in those interviews was the terrible abuse the two boys had also suffered.
They’d been beaten and locked in a cage, partly made from a fireguard. At times, they’d been tied up all night and forced to take cold showers. Other abuses are too appalling to detail.
Nyomi Fee also told one of the boys she’d killed his father with a saw and that their pet boa constrictor ate little boys.
The children’s evidence was crucial in this case, but so too was their welfare.
Alistair Gaw, president of Social Work Scotland, said the well-being of child witnesses was paramount.
“You wouldn’t be getting engaged in questioning or taking lines of questioning with a child that would actually be detrimental to that child, even if ultimately, that was at the cost of a prosecution case,” he said.
So, could anything have been done to save Liam Fee? Concerns were raised about him at least three times.
His nursery alerted social services after they became concerned about a change in a little boy who had seemed happy when he first arrived.
The two-year-old was reportedly happy when he first attended nursery, but was later found with injuries.
Staff found several injuries on him, and he was losing weight.
Liam’s childminder had also made her concerns known a few months earlier.
Patricia Smith, who used the same childminder, also phoned social work after meeting the Fees in the street. Liam was in his buggy. Ms Smith told the court she didn’t know if he was drugged or dead.
It was around now that Rachel Fee began telling people her two-year-old son had autism.
A senior Fife social worker admitted to the court that at one point Liam “fell off their radar”. A member of staff went off sick, and no one else was assigned to his case. It was not until further concerns were raised that Liam’s case was reviewed.
There are also questions for Fife Council and its social work department, the NHS, Police Scotland, and other relevant agencies.
Douglas Dunlop is the vice chairman of Fife’s Child Protection Committee, which represents all the agencies involved in child protection.
It has set up a BULLSHIT significant case review.
He said: “The circumstances of supporting families in situations such as this can be complex, and there were a range of agencies involved in supporting Liam and his family, and the details of that will be looked at through the Significant Case Review.”
The review will be chaired by Professor Jacqueline Mok, a retired consultant who was the lead paediatrician for child protection in Edinburgh. She will look at all the records and interview the staff involved in the circumstances leading up to Liam’s death.
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