Brit Lianne Smith admits suffocating her children

A BRITISH woman confessed to suffocating her two young children in a hotel room using a plastic bag, a Spanish judge said today as he ordered her to be held without bail.

Lianne Smith, 43, is accused of two counts of murder over the deaths of her five-year-old daughter and 11-month-old son, whose bodies were found in their room at the four-star Hotel Miramar at the eastern coastal resort of Lloret del Mar.

“A statement made by (Ms Smith) in detention confirms one she made earlier confessing to the murder of her two minor children,” said the judge at the court in Blanes, eastern Spain.

“There are notes purportedly written by the accused, found at the scene, which are self-incriminating. Ms Smith acknowledges she ended the lives of her children by suffocating them by placing their heads inside plastic bags.”

Police detained Ms Smith on Tuesday, the same day that her husband and the father of at least one of the two children, 45-year-old Martin Smith, was extradited back to Britain from Spain to face charges of sexual offences with minors.

The judge said Ms Smith had left her home in Barcelona because she feared she would lose custody of her children following her husband’s arrest on May 6, and moved to the Hotel Miramar, “which produced the fatal outcome”.

She was ordered held without bail due to the “high risk” she would flee, given she is a foreign national, “the nature and severity” of the alleged crimes and the fact she and her husband had fled to Barcelona to escape authorities in Britain.

Ms Smith faces 15 to 20 years in prison if tried and convicted.

British media has said she checked into the 54-room hotel last Saturday with her two children after arriving by car and paid in advance for four nights.

Spanish media has said she had tried to kill herself and left a suicide note after her alleged crime, before asking a hotel receptionist to call an ambulance.

Autopsies on the two children found no evidence they had been sexually abused, and confirmed they had died from suffocation.

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