It is all but impossible to imagine the suffering Liam Fee endured during his short life, or the depravity that led his mother and her partner to inflict it.

The pair, Rachel and Nyomi Fee, were found guilty of the two and a half-year-old’s murder yesterday, and now face life in prison. The women were also guilty of a catalogue of horrific abuse against two other young boys, one of whom they tried to blame Liam’s death on.

As has become the familiar pattern following such verdicts, questions are being asked around the role the authorities played in protecting the children at the centre of this case, and it has already been announced that a Significant Case Review (SCR) will address whether Liam’s death could have been prevented.

We must be careful, of course, not to jump to conclusions. Society often rushes to blame social workers for the deaths of abused children; ultimately, however, it is those individuals who carry out the wicked and despicable acts that are culpable. Failings of the authorities may contribute to bad situations, but there are clearly some cases where no intervention would have prevented the eventual outcome.

In saying that, there is no denying that Liam’s case highlighted a number of potentially serious failings. Concerns were raised about the boy’s welfare by both his nursery and his childminder. Another woman who used the same childminder was so concerned about Liam after meeting the family in the street that she called social services. A senior social worker in Fife, where they lived, admitted in court that the child “fell off their radar” after a member of staff went off sick.

These strands, and any others, must be rigorously examined by the review. After all, this is the second SCR to take place in Fife in just two years; the other followed the case of three-year-old Mikaeel Kular, who was beaten to death by his mother in January 2014.

A lack of communication is often behind failings in child protection cases. And this is exactly Scottish Government says its controversial Named Person policy aims to tackle. It is understood that Liam, like every child in Fife, already had a Named Person of sorts, though the full responsibilities contained in the proposals had not been fully implemented.

Had the system worked for Liam, in theory the multiple concerns about his care highlighted during the trial would all have been sent to one single source, in this case probably a health visitor; it appears that multiple agencies received disparate reports and did not put together the pieces of the jigsaw. A fuller picture could have emerged that may have resulted in earlier intervention and could have saved his life.

There are certainly pertinent questions around the implementation of the Named Person scheme, but its critics should not be allowed to use this single case as ammunition to kill it off completely.

After all, Liam Fee is exactly the sort of child the policy, if properly implemented, should help. As it was, he – like others - fell through the cracks. No society can save every Liam Fee; but if the authorities can communicate better and intervene sooner then surely more can be helped.