A mother's failure to get help for her injured two-year-old does not make her a murderer, a court has heard.
Rachel Fee or Trelfa, 31, is accused along with her civil partner Nyomi Fee, 29, of a fatal assault on toddler Liam Fee, who died at a house in Fife on March 22, 2014.
The pair claim another boy, who cannot be identified, was responsible for his injuries.
Trelfa's lawyer told the trial at the High Court in Livingston that she had "no motive" for attacking her son and was guilty only of the "unforgivable crime" of failing to seek medical aid for Liam for a suspected broken leg in the days before his death.
Brian McConnachie QC said: "By failing to get medical help, his mother Rachel Fee committed an unforgivable crime and in due course she will be rightly and justly punished for that.
"That does not make her a murderer.
"Tragedy is an overused word in this court but the death of Liam Fee is a real, genuine tragedy."
He told the jury: "Do not compound that tragedy by convicting Rachel Fee of the murder of her son when there's not a shred of evidence to support that contention.
"The Crown case is one of illusion, of smoke and mirrors."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article