TWO women accused of murdering toddler Liam Fee were “panicking” as they tried to dismantle a makeshift cage in which they allegedly imprisoned another boy, a jury has heard.

In a video interview recorded after two-year-old Liam’s death in March 2014, a seven-year-old witness spoke of the reactions of Nyomi Fee and Rachel Trelfa, or Fee, after they realised the boy was dead.

He said: “They were panicking about the cage. They were asking, ‘where can the cage go?’”

He said he heard Rachel Fee say they could not put it in the bedroom. 
He gave evidence that he had seen another youngster kept prisoner in the cage, made from a fireguard and wire mesh from a bed.

The night Liam died, he said he and the other boy were stripped naked and doing punishment exercises because they had been “grounded” by Nyomi and Rachel Fee.

Earlier he said the civil partners had forced him and the other boy to hit each other on the private parts with a training shoe and a tube of cream which caused him to bleed.

When they told him that Liam was dead they ordered him and the other boy to get dressed quickly because police were on their way.

A jury at the High Court in Livingston heard the boy witness say in a video interview that both came “screaming around the house”.

He said: “They never told the police because they thought they were going to get in jail for that.

“I was saying it was OK and she (Rachel) was like: ‘It’s not going to be OK if you’re going to prison’. That’s what she kept saying.”

He said Nyomi Fee had told him that he needed to tell police what the other boy had done to him.

He said: “The shoe made it bleed. That was the day when I had to have a cold shower all day.”

He said Nyomi Fee was lying in bed encouraging the other boy to hit him on the private parts with a trainer and he had to do the same to the other boy.
He was asked: “Did you ever have to do anything to Liam?” 

He answered: “No, because he wasn’t bad.”

Nyomi Fee, 28, and Rachel Fee 31, originally from Ryton, Tyne and Wear, are accused of murdering Liam in March 2014 and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by blaming the killing on a seven-year-old boy.

They are also charged with a catalogue of allegations that they neglected Liam and abused two other children in their care over a two-year period.
They deny all the charges against them.

The trial continues.