Two women accused of murdering toddler Liam Fee wept in the dock as a recording of their desperate battle to save his life was played to a jury.
Nyomi Fee and her civil partner Rachel Trelfa wiped away tears as they listened to the harrowing ‘999’ call Fee made to the ambulance service after she found Liam dead to the ambulance service.
She is heard telling the call handler: “Baby isn’t breathing. My baby isn’t breathing.” And sobbing: “He’s not breathing. He’s white.
“I know what happened (another) little boy strangled him. He held his mouth closed because he was crying and hit him.”
Whining and crying as she desperately follows instructions from the call handler to try to bring the two-year-old back to life.
She tells the call handler she can’t open the tot’s mouth to give him artificial respiration then says there is blood coming from his nose and foam from his mouth.
At one point she says through harsh and urgent breaths: “It’s making a rattling sound”
Ambulance technician James Graham. 44, and paramedic Sandy Higgins, 46, reached the pair’s house near Glenrothes, Fife within ten minutes of the call for help.
Mr Graham said he was met at the bottom of the stairs by Rachel Fee, the mother of the child. He said: “She was rightly hysterical. We went upstairs. We had trouble getting in because of baby gate so we just ripped it out of the way “I saw the baby lying on floor. It had a white, waxy complexion, no signs of life. He appeared to me lifeless, well he was lifeless.
“We got an indication before going to the job that we were going to a futile scenario. I formed the impression that the child was dead but took over. I commenced CPR.
“My colleague and I put the shock pads of the defibrillator on the child’s front and back. I tried to open mouth. I wouldn’t say it was easy but I managed to get it open. Just a little bit of the jaw was a bit tight.
“I would say at the time there was trismus, (commonly called lockjaw) which occurs after a period of time and somebody’s been dead for a while, just very slight.
“As soon as the shock pads went on there was a flat line on the screen. As we looked there appeared to be what are classed as post mortem staining which usually indicates after a period of up to an hour blood not pumping around the body pools on areas near to the ground.
“There appeared to be purple mottled marks on that area of the body. The child might have mottled skin anyway, but there appeared to be evidence that there as pm staining at that point.”
Both Mr Graham and Mr Higgins said they’d heard Nyomi Fee shout on a little boy who came running into the bedroom where Liam’s body was.
She shouted at him: “You tell these men what you’ve done. Tell them what you did to XXXX.
He stood there with a look as if to say: ‘I don’t know what I’ve done but it must be bad then just ran off.
The two ambulance staff carried on giving CPR to the child but eventually pronounced extinct at 20.07.
Trelfa and Fee are charged with assaulting Liam between January 12 2012 and March 14 2014 and murdering him between March 5 and 22 2014 by inflicting blunt force injuries.
The pair, who are originally from Ryton, Tyne and Wear, deny all charges.