Mother in talks over bodies of children in Spain

A MOTHER who admitted suffocating her two children with a plastic bag in a Spanish hotel room is expected to decide whether their bodies should be repatriated.

Rebecca, aged five, and her 11-month-old brother Daniel were found dead at the Hotel Miramar in Lloret de Mar, on the Costa Brava, on Tuesday.

British consular staff are due to visit their mother, Lianne Smith, in jail to discuss whether she wants their bodies to be flown home or buried in Spain. The bodies are understood to currently be held at Girona's Institute of Legal Medicine.

Smith, 43, was transferred to prison in Girona, Spain after a judge ruled that a case should be brought against her.

The former Cumbria County Council employee confessed to the horrific killings in notes left at the crime scene, a court in Blanes, near Lloret de Mar, heard. Judge Rafael Fernandez remanded her in custody at the end of Friday's hearing, which was held behind closed doors and lasted several hours.

She is being held in a cell on her own and is thought to be on suicide watch. The children died around the time Smith's partner Martin Smith, 45, was extradited to Britain to face child sex charges.

Reports in Spain suggested they were killed on Monday night and that their mother spent the night in her hotel room with their bodies. The court heard that Smith, who is believed to have run a nursery in Barcelona, was worried the authorities would take her children away.

A statement from the court read:

"Asked if she wanted to be present when the two bodies were removed, she declined as she said she had already said goodbye to her two children."