LONDON – A British woman faces at least 38 years in prison on charges of killing her two children while they slept in a hotel room in Spain and spending the night with their lifeless bodies.
Lianne Smith, 45, admitted suffocating her five-year-old daughter Rebecca Smith and 11-month-old son Daniel with a plastic bag at a hotel in Lloret de Mar in the Costa Brava coastal region in May 2010.
She went on trial at the provincial court in Girona, in northeast Spain. A jury will determine whether she is criminally responsible for the children’s deaths, The Sun reported.
Her defence lawyer is seeking an acquittal, claiming the woman was in a state of “psychiatric disturbance” when the incident took place
The killings took place shortly after the woman’s partner was arrested in Barcelona by Spanish police acting on a European arrest warrant. He was deported to Britain.
The family had been living in Spain since 2007 after fleeing Lichfield, Staffordshire, when the man was accused of sexually abusing a young girl.
The following day, the woman asked the hotel’s reception for the police and an ambulance to be called. She confessed to the police and judicial authorities that she had killed her children.
