THE two did not exchange a glance as one by one the verdicts on eight charges were read out.

After a seven-week trial, a jury of eight women and six men took about 10 hours to find Nyomi Fee and Rachel Trelfa guilty by majority of assault and murder, and of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by trying to blame his death on one of the young boys.

Twice Fee looked back to the public gallery but she made no attempt to communicate with her civil partner Trelfa.

She made no gesture and did not appear to be acknowledged.

All 70 seats were taken in Court Two, upstairs in Livingston Civic Centre.

There was near silence as each charge was laid out with a guilty verdict, except for the low stifled weeping of family members in the public gallery.

The family and supporters of the killers had sat just few feet from Liam’s father, Joseph Johnson, in the West Lothian court room.

He left the court in tears ahead of others on the row reserved for family and friends.

For more than seven weeks, Trelfa, 31, and Fee had listened to the mounting evidence against them.

Liam’s mother had earlier sat uneasy in the dock while her 29-year-old partner, her tattooed neck visible, sat impassively.

The verdict was the end of a long road, which had led from the north of England to the East of Scotland.

The pair had left their home village of Ryton, on Tyne and Wear, to start a new life in Scotland following the breakdown of the relationship between Trelfa and Liam’s father.

In Glenrothes, where they settled near friends who had moved to the area, they hoped for a fresh start. But the new chapter was to have a brutal conclusion.

Liam was described as a happy child but he almost certainly spent his final days in agony.

Advocate Depute Alex Prentice painted a picture of escalating violence, of “unyielding, heartless cruelty”, against the toddler in the days before his death.

He told of an atmosphere of abuse which permeated the house, directed against the two-year-old and other children in Trelfa and Fee’s care.

Liam was said to be an engaging boy according to nursery staff, who would laugh and sing when in their care.

The toddler was said to be developing relatively well, according to those outside the family. Yet he seemed was scared of his mother.

He was losing weight, and becoming withdrawn. Injuries suffered by the boy included pinch marks, a broken arm, and a wound to the back of his head.

The post mortem examination found evidence that he had suffered a ruptured intestine at some point, which had healed before his death.

None of these injuries were treated by medical staff.

There was shock in the court when the prosecution produced photographs of Liam's tiny thigh bone, removed during the same post mortem exam.

It was not simply fractured, but snapped into pieces.

Liam lived with this injury for days while his parents debated what to do, in full knowledge if the agony he would was suffering.

The case attracted attention from across Scotland. Each day the public gallery was packed with spectators.

Questions were asked over how could two women, one of them Liam’s mother, have conducted such a campaign of violence against a defenceless boy.

Both women remained expressionless as they were led from the court into custody.

They will be sentenced on July 6.