Date set for appeal against Liam Fee murder conviction

Lawyers acting for Rachel Fee (31), will address the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh on January 31, 2017.

Lord Turnbull took the decision to fix the hearing for next month following a short hearing at the court on Wednesday.

Judge Lord Burns jailed Fee for 23 and a half years for murdering her two-year-old son following proceedings at the High Court in Edinburgh in July 2016. Her civil partner Nyomi Fee (24), was jailed for 24 years for her role in taking Liam’s life.

Now, lawyers acting for Fee are set to argue can argue that Lord Burns made mistakes when addressing jurors about the law.

They say the errors are so serious as to make Ms Fee’s conviction unsafe.

On Wednesday, Lord Turnbull said: “I will set the date for the hearing in this case for January 31.”

During proceedings from earlier this year, the high court heard how the pair spent two years torturing the tot before finally killing him at their Fife home in March 2014.

The duo left the child with heart injuries similar to those found on car crash victims.

They also abused another two boys in their care by imprisoning one in a home made cage and tying another naked to a chair in a dark room that stored snakes and rats.

The two murderers tried to evade justice for murdering Liam by forcing one of the other children to take the blame for the crime.

Meanwhile, the cowards Googled whether they could serve their prison sentences alongside each other in the same jail.

Police eventually discovered the apparent confession made by the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been made under duress.

They discovered that Nyomi had attempted to frame the child by forcing him to leave his DNA on Liam’s body.

However, after a short hearing at the Court of Criminal Appeal last month, Fee’s lawyer Gavin Anderson argued that evidence is available to suggest that Lord Burns misdirected jurors over the legal requirements needed to secure a murder conviction against Fee.

The advocate also argued that the judge didn’t properly explain to the jury about the lesser charge of culpable homicide.

Jurors considering their verdict against Fee may have felt that the evidence presented to them meant that it was more appropriate to return a guilty verdict to culpable homicide than murder.

At the time, Lady Paton said: “We will allow the appeal to proceed.”