Lloret deaths mother 'tells court she killed her two children'

THE mother of two children found dead in a Spanish holiday resort confessed to the killings yesterday, as she was charged in court.

• Lianne Smith as she is transferred to a prison in Girona, Spain.

Lianne Smith, 43, was held by police in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava after Rebecca, five, and Daniel, 11 months, were found dead in a hotel room on Tuesday. According to reports, they had been suffocated.

They died on the same day that Smith's partner and the children's father, Martin Smith, 45, was extradited to Britain to face child sex charges.

Judge Rafael Fernandez ruled there was evidence that the mother was responsible for the deaths and ordered her to be jailed pending a trial. Court officials said she had admitted the killings during the brief hearing

in Blanes.

She was then transferred to a Girona prison to await trial.

Smith had been a manager in Cumbria County Council's children's services department before the family moved to Staffordshire in October 2007. It emerged yesterday she had refused offers of help from Staffordshire Police after the arrest of her partner.

It is alleged she killed her children a short time later, before trying to take her own life. According to police sources, she told friends she feared the children would be taken into care.

Martin Smith appeared before Carlisle magistrates on Wednesday charged with 13 sexual offences and one of jumping bail. One of Britain's most wanted men until his arrest in Spain earlier this month, Smith allegedly jumped bail in 2008 while facing charges of rape of a child under 16, gross indecency with a girl under 16, indecent assault of a girl under 16 and attempted rape of a girl under 16.