London -
Horrific failings by social services were exposed on Tuesday as a mother and her civil partner were found guilty of murdering her two-year-old son.
Liam Fee died when his heart ruptured from blows to his chest - and a pathologist found he had more than 30 injuries, including a fractured upper arm and thigh.
His mother Rachel and her lesbian partner Nyomi were able to carry out two years of sustained attacks on the toddler and two other boys as social services repeatedly failed to act.
The pair’s depraved abuse included:
- Imprisoning one boy in a cage made from a fire guard, using cable ties to bind his hands behind his back;
- Tying another boy naked to a chair in a dark room with nine snakes and several rats, forcing him to eat his own vomit and telling him a boa constrictor “ate naughty little boys”;
- Forcing the youngsters to take cold showers when they wet the bed.
Days before Liam was found dead with his leg broken, the pair, who used to live in Ryton, Gateshead, had used Google to look for “morphine for children”, as well as searching: “Will a hip fracture heal on its own?” And: “Can wives go to prison together?”
Rachel, 31, and Nyomi, 29, had tried to blame another boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, for Liam’s death.
Nyomi had forced the boy’s fist into Liam’s mouth after his death in March 2014 in order to leave DNA traces, Livingston High Court heard.
Repeated concerns had been raised by a childminder and nursery staff – but a senior social worker admitted Liam “fell off their radar”.
His father Joseph Johnson, 33, wept on Tuesday as the pair, who lived near Glenrothes in Fife, Scotland, were found guilty of murder following a seven-week trial.
Childminder Heather Farmer, who looked after Liam at her home from July 2012 until the following January, told the court she had been so worried about him she could not sleep.
She called watchdog the Scottish Childminding Association and the Care Inspectorate after he arrived with scratches and bruises on his face – days after he had bruises on his head and legs his mother said he had suffered falling out of his cot.
After Miss Farmer told the couple she could not look after Liam any more, they enrolled him in the Sunshine private nursery in Kirkcaldy, which he began attending two days a week in March 2013.
Staff soon noticed bruises and recorded the incidents.
By June, they had contacted social services with their concerns before he was withdrawn from the nursery.
Another woman, Patricia Smith, who knew the couple, said she had got in touch with social workers after she saw them outside a shop in September 2013.
She said she had thought Liam, who was sitting in his buggy with a blanket over his head, looked “deathly”, adding: “I didn’t know if he was drugged or dead.”
Karen Pedder, a manager with Fife Council, told the court a caseworker had been assigned to investigate reports of abuse after the concerns were first raised in January 2013.
But a social worker and a police officer sent to visit the family had accepted the “plausible explanation” given that he had simply bumped his head. The social worker who had been dealing with Liam’s case then went off sick in April and it was not looked at again until the nursery got in touch in June, she said.
During cross-examination, Rachel Fee’s defence counsel Brian McConnachie asked: “What seems to have happened here is basically, as far as Liam is concerned, this case just went off the radar?”
Mrs Pedder replied: “It did. Yes.” She said a case would normally be reviewed after about four weeks, but this had not happened.
The couple were also found guilty of assaulting Liam over more than two years prior to his death.
The court heard there had been an escalation of violence towards Liam, with police finding chains used to tie him in the house.
The couple then failed to get help when they knew Liam had a broken leg and arm. The injuries, days before his death, would have left him in intense agony. But instead of taking him to hospital, the Fees went online – using their mobile phones to search Google for terms such as: “How long can you live with a broken bone?”
Detective Inspector Rory Hamilton said: “We had got this picture of Rachel and Nyomi being very, very close, very tight together, and again, it would appear that the children had maybe become somewhat of an inconvenience. All the issues and problems were after Rachel and Nyomi had got together.”
Rachel had been with Liam’s father Mr Johnson, from Ryton, for seven years before she left him for Nyomi. A source close to Rachel’s family told the Mail: “Her relationship with Nyomi was toxic.”
The killers showed little emotion as the verdicts were returned.
In evidence they had admitted serious failings over the lack of medical help for Liam – but put it down to fears he would be taken into care.
They denied all charges against them, and had tried to shift the blame for the killing to another boy, who was of primary-school age.
Such was his fear of the women, the boy told police and social workers he had “strangled” the toddler. However, it was clear suffocation was not the cause of death. The evidence also pointed to a significant delay between the women’s discovery that Liam was dead and the emergency services being called by a seemingly hysterical Nyomi Fee shortly before 8pm.
Putting self-interest ahead of Liam’s life, the “panicking” pair used the time to dismantle a makeshift cage they had built to imprison the child they accused of the killing.
With that, they showed a “wicked indifference” to whether the “vulnerable and defenceless” Liam lived or died, the court heard. Alex Prentice QC, prosecuting, told the court the women were guilty of “unyielding, heartless cruelty”.
The Fees had shown “callous indifference” to Liam’s suffering and had covered up his injuries, he said.
The prosecution insisted it did not matter who struck the fatal blow as they had a common criminal purpose and were joined in “a course of violent and cruel treatment towards the children”.
They were convicted of all eight charges they faced, with a majority verdict on the murder charge. The two boys have been placed in foster carer and are said to be thriving.
Judge Lord Burns deferred sentencing until July 6 for background reports. Mr Prentice said: “Liam’s father has been in attendance both as a witness and on occasion in connection with the trial, and in particular in the closing phases in the trial, and was here today.
“It is impossible to express in words the sense of loss that he feels on the loss of Liam.” Fife Child Protection Committee is carrying out a review into Liam’s death.
The missed chances to save toddler
August 2011: Liam is born to mother Rachel Fee (then Trelfa) and father Joseph Johnson.
December 2011: She leaves Mr Johnson for Nyomi Fee. The couple live in hotels around Newcastle before moving to Fife, Scotland.
Easter 2012: Contact with Liam’s father stops.
June 2012: Rachel and Nyomi become civil partners.
July 2012: Liam starts going to childminder Heather Farmer, who lives nearby.
January 2013: Mrs Farmer tells Scottish Childminding Association and Care Inspectorate Liam has bruises and stops looking after him. A police officer and social worker visit Liam’s home but leave when told he has bumped his head.
March 2013: Liam starts nursery. Staff contact social services over bruises and scratches.
april 2013: A social worker assigned to Liam goes off work sick. Liam dropped “off the radar”, a Fife Council manager later admitted to the court.
September 2013: A woman contacts social workers as she is worried Liam looks “deathly” and could be being drugged.
March 19, 2014: The Fees search Google for terms including: “Will a hip fracture heal on its own?” And: “Can wives go to prison together?”
March 22, 2014: Liam is found dead at home with an untreated broken leg.
August 2, 2014: The couple are arrested and charged but claim another young boy is to blame.
Daily Mail