Jury rejects claim that mother killed her children ‘out of love’

A woman who killed her young son and daughter in their beds at a Spanish hotel has been found guilty of their “abominable” murders.

Lianne Smith, 45, admitted smothering 11-month-old Daniel and five-year-old Rebecca with a plastic bag at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava in May 2010.

A jury at the Provincial Court in Girona, north east Spain, last night found her guilty of murder charges after deciding she was criminally responsible for their deaths.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

She had been seeking an acquittal, claiming she was in a state of “psychiatric disturbance” and suffering insurmountable fear when the tragedy happened.

The court had been told she had believed British social workers were following her, intent on taking the children away, and she had fled to Lloret with them only days before resolving on murder- suicide as the only way out.

Psychiatric experts had supported the defence claims, with one telling the court: “She believed the children would be taken away from her and institutionalised. For her, this was worse than death.

“She killed them out of love. She loved the children.” But the jury rejected suggestions she was “totally disturbed”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Wearing a dark top, black trousers and flip flops, Smith remained calm when the verdict was read out.

Victor Pillado Quintas, for the prosecution, asked for her to be jailed for a total of 34 years. Judge Adolfo Garcia Morales is expected to announce a sentence in the coming weeks.

Rejecting Smith’s claim she was in a psychotic state when she murdered her children, the jury foreman said: “The defendant admitted during the trial that she was fully conscious of what she was doing and knew it was wrong.”

Mr Pillado Quintas had described the killings as “horrid, vile and despicable” and after the verdict, he said: “Justice has been done; these were abominable crimes.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The murders took place shortly after Smith’s partner, Martin Smith, was arrested in Barcelona by Spanish police acting on a European arrest warrant.

The family had been living in Spain since 2007 after fleeing Lichfield, Staffordshire, because Smith’s eldest daughter by her first husband accused Mr Smith of raping her.

In December 2010, Martin Smith was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of using hypnosis, bullying and violence to groom and sexually abuse Sarah Richardson, who has waived her right to anonymity. The 46-year-old was found hanged in his cell at Strangeways Prison in Manchester in January last year.

Jenifer Lahoz Abos, for the defence, asked for a maximum sentence of three-and-a-half years, calling on the judge to consider Smith’s admission that she killed her children as a mitigating factor.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The jury had heard that after spending two days with Daniel and Rebecca at the Miramar, Smith suffocated them as they slept on the night of May 17 2010.

Smith then tried to take her own life by cutting herself with razors, covering her head with a plastic bag, hanging herself with telephone cable and drowning in a bath. After failing in her suicide attempts, she went down to reception at 1.30pm the following day and asked for police and an ambulance to be called.

She let an officer into the room, pointed to a bed where the dead children lay covered by sheets and confessed to killing them.

In harrowing video footage of an interview with police, conducted next door to where the murders took place, she said the family had reached the “end of the road” after Martin Smith was arrested and deported.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I gave my children a three-day holiday, a perfect holiday, we were very, very happy.

“This was the end of the road, I knew my children would be taken back to England.

“So I know it’s not right to take another life, but I felt I was in a corner and my intention was for me and my children to go.”