A couple accused of murdering a two-year-old boy are back in Scotland after a mob hounded them out of an English village.
Nyomi Fee and civil partner Rachael Trelfa had to be given a police escort out of Chopwell, near Newcastle.
They are accused of murdering Trelfa’s toddler son Liam at their flat in Fife, and are on bail awaiting trial.
It’s claimed the couple also neglected Liam, harmed two boys and tried to defeat justice by blaming the murder on a seven-year-old.
Fee, 28, and Trelfa, 31, are in temporary council accommodation in Edinburgh while officials look for somewhere permanent to put them. But a social work source said: “We’re fully expecting to have to move them again. Public feeling runs high when it comes to children.
“It’s a matter of time before people find out their identities.”
Fee and Trelfa are originally from Tyneside and moved back there after Liam’s death.
But hundreds of villagers gathered outside their house in Chopwell two weeks ago to demand they be evicted.
Eggs and other missiles were thrown and dozens of police arrived to keep order. They summoned a local councillor to try to calm the crowd.
Police eventually moved Fee and Trelfa out of the house and took them and their possessions away in vans.
Fee and Trelfa are accused of murdering Liam between March 15 and 22 last year in Thornton, Fife, and telling a 999 operator, ambulance staff, police, friends and family that a seven-year-old boy killed him.
It’s alleged that between January 2012 and March 2014, Fee and Trelfa left Liam in his pushchair for long periods, put a blanket over his face and left him in a darkened room.
They also failed to feed him enough and gave him Calpol and medicine intended for another child to keep him quiet and make him sleep, it is claimed.
Fee and Trelfa are also accused of harming two boys between January 2012 and March 2014.
It’s claimed they made one boy stand naked under a cold shower as punishment for wetting the bed, bound him in a cage made from a fireguard with cable ties, string and a dressing gown cord, put items on him and hit him.
They allegedly forced the boy’s hand into Liam’s mouth after Liam died.
Fee and Trelfa are also accused of tying a second boy to a chair, naked, in a room where they kept rats and snakes. It’s claimed they slapped the child if he moved.
The couple deny all charges. Their trial is due to begin at the High Court in Livingston on April 4.
