Lianne Smith

Case record: Lianne Smith

Other details

Lianne Smith was convicted of murdering her children Daniel and Rebecca.

Smith was 45 at the time of her sentencing and was also described as 43 in relation to earlier proceedings. She was from Lichfield, Staffordshire. She was a former county council children’s services manager and was also described as a former manager at Cumbria county council’s children’s services department.

Smith shared the surname “Smith” with her partner Martin Smith. The couple were not married.

Smith was pathologically obsessed with her partner Martin Smith and feared the children would be taken into care by UK social services because of paedophile charges against her boyfriend.

Smith attempted to commit suicide. She was reported to have tried to cut her own wrists and throat, attempted to drown herself, suffocate herself and hang herself but failed in her suicide bids. She was on suicide watch at a secure psychiatric hospital inside a prison near Barcelona after her jury verdict.

Smith refused to answer more than 100 questions from prosecutor Victor Pillado Quintas during her trial. She spent five minutes answering questions from her defence lawyer Jenifer Lahoz Abos. She also stared blankly at the floor as the unanimous guilty verdict rang out at Girona Provincial Court.

Smith wrote a series of notes after the killings. One note to Rebecca and Daniel said: “I love you very much. I wanted to give you a lovely life together. I’m very sorry.” Another note fixed to the wooden door of hotel room 101 read: “Do not disturb, my children are ill.” A further quoted letter read: “...an attempt was made to take my children. ''Fortunately I got out of the city with them and gave them a short and wonderful holiday before the events you will start to hear about in the press.” Smith also left a suicide note in which she wrote: “I hope you can forgive me”. She told reception to call police after attempting suicide.

After the verdicts, the judge and lawyers in the case joined members of the jury in a local bar.

A court heard that Smith’s trial involved jurors rejecting defence claims that she was criminally insane. Jurors agreed she did suffer from an unspecified psychosis and from depression but ruled she was not criminally insane. The jury believed Smith was “fully conscious” and knew what she was doing when she smothered Rebecca and Daniel.

The offence

Lianne Smith killed her children Daniel and Rebecca in their Spanish hotel room.

The prosecution case included that Smith suffocated the sleeping youngsters. She described how she took the children sleeping from their bed, pinned down their legs with her own legs to prevent them moving, and put a plastic bag over their heads until they were asphyxiated.

The judge described Daniel as “less than a year old” and said: “He was a baby and therefore, by his very nature, was totally defenceless.” The judge said of Rebecca: “The daughter Rebecca was almost six years old which also made her totally incapable of defending herself in the face of a murderous act carried out by her mother.”

In Smith’s own description of the crimes, she told the court that “Daniel was less than a year old. He was a baby and therefore, by his very nature, was totally defenceless.” and “The daughter Rebecca was almost six years old which also made her totally incapable of defending herself in the face of a murderous act carried out by her mother.” She also stated: “In her own description of the crimes, the accused told how she took them sleeping from their bed, pinned down their legs with her own legs to prevent them moving and put a plastic bag over their heads until they were asphyxiated.”

Smith’s confession video was shown to jurors. In that video, Smith said to detectives: “I have ended the lives of my two children. I gave the children a three-day holiday, a perfect holiday. I knew they were going to take my children to England. ‘My intention was that my children and me together would go. It wasn’t just the children.’”

Smith also told detectives: “I put a bag on his head. All of the head was in. [I knew when he was dead] because I was holding him.” When asked if her daughter had put up a struggle, Smith replied: ‘She moved, yes.’

In court, Smith described that she spent the night in the hotel room cuddling her dead children, writing a series of notes. She told the court: “I ended the lives of my two children. Then I lay in the bed beside them, I gave them a cuddle. "I talked to them until about 9pm, then I went into the bathroom.” She also said of Daniel’s death: “I put a bag on his head. All of the head was in.” She added that she knew when he was dead “because I was holding him”. She told detectives she then killed Rebecca with the same bag, adding her daughter moved as she clasped the bag around her throat, but did not grab her or kick out.

Smith also asked her daughter if she would prefer “brilliant few days” or “lifetime without her”.

Investigation

The jury were shown a video of Smith calmly confessing to detectives while she sat on a bed in the next-door hotel room.

Police sources were cited as saying that Smith attempted to kill herself after the killings.

Authorities feared Smith might make further attempts to take her own life after she told them: “I want to join my children on the other side”.

Arrest and custody

Smith was taken into custody following the hotel incident.

Her partner Martin Smith was arrested on child sex charges at their home in Barcelona after being on the run from British police for more than two years.

Smith’s earlier proceedings included Spanish police tracking and arresting Martin Smith, who was extradited back to Britain. Martin Smith was remanded into custody following his appearances in court.

Trial

Smith was tried at Girona provincial court in north-east Spain.

She was found guilty of double murder by a jury after a four-day trial.

Jurors rejected defence claims that she was criminally insane. They agreed she suffered from an unspecified psychosis and from depression, but ruled she was not criminally insane.

After the verdicts, prosecutor Victor Pillado Quintas said: ‘Today justice has been done for two defenceless small children who were murdered in the most abominable and vile way – by their own mother.’

Prosecutor Victor Pillado Quintas called for a maximum sentence of 34 years, and during the trial stated that Smith “took advantage of the trust the children gave her as their mother” when she killed them, adding that they were asleep and “totally incapable of defending themselves”. The jury foreman announced the jury believed Smith was ‘fully conscious’ and knew what she was doing.

Smith’s defence lawyer Jenifer Lahoz Abos said that Smith admitted killing the two children but called for her to be acquitted on mental health grounds.

Sentencing

Judge Adolfo Garcia Morales sentenced Smith to 15 years for each murder, totalling 30 years.

The prosecution called for the maximum sentence of 34 years, but the judge jailed Smith for 15 years for each count of murder.

Related case: Martin Smith

Martin Smith was described as a fugitive partner and a TV psychic. He was 46.

He was convicted of repeatedly raping a minor and was sentenced to 16 years. He hanged himself in prison in Manchester in January.

Martin Smith was convicted of 11 counts of rape, attempted rape, indecency with a child and indecent assault. His trial in 2010 was described as involving violence and hypnotism, starting in May 1995 when his victim was seven.

Sarah Richardson, who was Lianne Smith’s daughter from a previous relationship, waived her anonymity. She said: ‘He’d say to me: “You are getting sleepier and sleepier”, and I’d pretend to go along with it because he was going to do whatever he wanted to me anyway,’ she says. ‘Afterwards he would count me back out of the trance and say something like “you’ve had a dream” or “you’ve been somewhere nice and warm”. ‘He’d finish by asking: “So what have you been doing?” and I’d say: "Oh, I’ve had a nice dream”, and he would think that was great and send me off to bed. ‘I think he hoped I wouldn’t remember the abuse, because if I didn’t know it had happened, he didn’t need to feel guilty.’

Sarah later waived her right to anonymity to tell the story of how her “controlling” stepfather was “a ruthless abuser” who turned her mother into a stranger.

Family and background

Daniel was 11 months old. Rebecca was five at the time of the murders.

Smith was described as having two older children, both adults, from a previous relationship.

Smith asked her daughter if she would prefer ‘brilliant few days’ or ‘lifetime without her’. When Rebecca said she wanted to stay with her mother, Smith took the children to the resort of Lloret de Mar to give them ‘a perfect holiday’.

The children were killed in their hotel room at Hotel Miramar in Lloret de Mar.

Smith had checked into room 101 of the Hotel Miramar on May 15, 2010.

After two days in the resort playing on the beach, Smith put the children to bed at about 7pm and waited an hour until they were asleep before suffocating them with a plastic shopping bag.

The next day, after trying to commit suicide, she told reception to call police.

The children were found dead at the Hotel Miramar in Lloret de Mar on May 18 and were later taken to a morgue in Girona for post mortem examination.

In one quoted letter, Smith wrote about fleeing Barcelona and that she gave them “a short and wonderful holiday” before “the events you will start to hear about in the press.” The letter described “an attempt was made to take my children.”

Other incidents and allegations

Claims were made that Smith had allegedly once worked as a prostitute offering “personal services” to clients across the North of England, with Martin Smith driving her to clients and waiting in the car.

A senior police source said: ‘In the 1990s, the family had very little money and at one stage were even forced to live for some time in a static caravan. ‘During this time Lianne was offering "holistic" or "personal" services to a wide range of clients in the North, and Martin Smith would drive her to one of these sessions and wait in the car while she conducted the business. ‘It is generally understood by those investigating the case that Miss Smith was offering sexual services to those clients – that she was in fact a prostitute.’

Interpol contacted the court and a court source said: “Interpol contacted the court some time ago to tell us the DNA sample we were sent by the British authorities may not have been Martin Smith's.”

Rebecca was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and Daniel was born in Barcelona. Spanish officials could not find a record of Daniel’s birth being formally registered.

The court heard that it was not clear who was the father of Rebecca and Daniel.

Mimi Buckley, described as 21 from Merseyside, said: “I think she meant to hire me as a nanny, leave her child­ren with me and then commit suicide,” and added: “But I don’t think she could bear to leave them, so she did what she did. It’s so sad.”