London: A British woman faces at least 38 years in prison on charges of killing her two children while they slept in a hotel room in Spain and spending the night with their lifeless bodies.
Lianne Smith, 45, admitted suffocating her five-year-old daughter Rebecca Smith and 11-month-old son Daniel with a plastic bag at a hotel in Lloret de Mar in the Costa Brava coastal region in May 2010.
She went on trial at the Provincial Court in Girona, in northeast Spain. A jury will determine whether she is criminally responsible for the children`s deaths, The Sun reported.
Her defence lawyer is seeking an acquittal, claiming the woman was in a state of "psychiatric disturbance" when the incident took place. The killings took place shortly after the woman`s partner was arrested in Barcelona by Spanish police acting on a European arrest warrant. He was deported to Britain. The family had been living in Spain since 2007 after fleeing Lichfield, Staffordshire, when the man was accused of sexually abusing a young girl.
The following day, the woman asked the hotel`s reception for the police and an ambulance to be called. She confessed to the police and judicial authorities that she had killed her children.
IANS