Jury to decide fate of mum who killed her two children at Spanish hotel

A JURY was today due to deliberate on the “abominable” killing of a young boy and girl by their mum.

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

The jury of eight men and three women at the Provincial Court in Girona, north-east Spain, were to retire today to decide whether she is criminally responsible for the deaths.

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

Before delivering his closing remarks, prosecutor Victor Pillado Quintas said he acknowledged Smith suffered a “pathological emotional dependence and a psychotic disorder which impaired her faculties” when she killed her kids.

Instead of a total of 38 years in prison, he is now asking for 34.

But he added: “I do not think there is a more abominable act than ending the life of a small child.”

Jenifer Lahoz Abos, for the defence, said Smith – whose family had been living in Spain since 2007 after fleeing Lichfield, Staffordshire – was facing the most “painful and hard” circumstances.

She told the jury: “You are here to consider facts, to impartially judge a person who was suffering a mental illness and who was living in a different reality, in a psychotic state when she carried out these acts.”