Children discovered in holdalls in mother's car 'died of asphyxiation'

Further tests are needed before the cause of the deaths of three-year-old Harry and two-year-old Elise Donnison can be fully determined, a spokesman for Sussex Police said.

The bodies of the two children were discovered in holdalls in the back of a car near their former home in Heathfield, East Sussex, after their mother Fiona Donnison, 43, went to police in a distressed state on Wednesday.

A former family nanny said that Mrs Donnison had "doted" on her children.

Speaking outside the house, Mrs Donnison's former employee, who identified herself only as Jo, described the two children as "lovely, normal, happy kids".

The former nanny said she began looking after Mrs Donnison's two older children Ollie, 13, and Will, 16, from a former marriage, in 2003 before she met her now-estranged husband, Paul Donnison.

She said the mother was devastated when her first child with Mr Donnison, a daughter named Mia, died of cot death in 2004. She believed she suffered a short spell of depression afterwards.

She said she stopped working for the family when Mrs Donnison became pregnant with Harry but continued to be in contact with her teenage sons. "I last saw her three or four weeks ago," she said. "She was fine, just grabbing stuff from Tesco for her tea."

Speaking of the children's deaths, the former nanny added: "I can't believe it. She was just a real mumsy mum."

Sussex Police have admitted they had "previous contact" with Mr and Mrs Donnison, although they refused to divulge the nature of it, or when it was.

Mrs Donnison, a former Lloyd's syndicate worker, is in a stable condition in hospital with "apparent self-harm injuries".