By Vic Rodrick
ONE of the women accused of murdering Liam Fee deleted calls from her mobile phone before she handed it to police, a jury heard today.
Nyomi Fee claimed she had accidentally wiped what the prosecution described as the “critical calls” that were all made to her mother about the time of Liam’s death on March 22, 2014.
She claimed she had been trying to take a note of numbers she needed before surrendering the handset to detectives after an interview at Glenrothes Police Station She told the High Court in Livingston: “I didn’t delete the calls on purpose. My telephone is damaged.
“It’s held together by Sellotape.
“I clicked highlight and deleted them by mistake.”
Advocate depute Alex Prentice told her: “The only ones you deleted were the calls to and from your ‘mam’.
“The critical calls made at 19.36, 19.42 and 19.44 – they were deleted.
“Do you accept that?”
She replied: “Yeah, that bloc was deleted. I did tell the police officer right there and then that that had happened.
“The phone was broken, held together with Sellotape, and all the bits of glass on the screen had come out.
“I was fumbling about with it.”
Mr Prentice commented: “It’s just a bit odd that in the cluster those are the only three that are deleted.”
She answered: “I don’t know.”
Nyomi, 28 and Liam’s mother Rachel, 31, her civil partner, both deny murdering the two-year-old and trying to blame the killing on a seven-year-old child.
They also deny a catalogue of abuse allegations against three children, including Liam, over a two-year period.
In the closing stage of giving evidence in her own defence, Nyomi maintained that she had not sought medical help for Liam’s broken leg and broken arm because Rachel had threatened to leave her and ban her from seeing Liam and two other boys they looked after at the time.
Mr Prentice asked her: “Looking back, is there anything you could have done to prevent the factors which led to Liam’s death?”
She replied: “I didn’t know that that was going to happen, so no.”
“Would you change anything?” he asked.
She said: “I would have got medical attention for Liam when I suspected his leg was injured.”
Mr Prentice said: “Might I suggest to you that there’s one thing you could have done to prevent all of this and that was to leave Rachel and her kids alone and never take up with her.”
She replied: “I don’t think that would have prevented that.”
Nyomi Fee is on trial at the High Court in Livingston alongside her civil partner Rachel Fee, or Trelfa, – Liam’s mother - where they deny murdering the toddler by repeatedly inflicting “blunt force trauma” to his head and body.
Liam died at a house near Glenrothes in Fife on March 22, 2014.
Nyomi Fee has previously admitted her failure to seek the required medical help for an injury Liam had to his leg days before his death amounted to neglect and ill-treatment.
The trial, before Lord Burns, continues.
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