Arrest
After one of Britain’s most wanted criminals was tracked down in Barcelona, his wife apparently suffocated her two children for fear they would be taken away from her
07.06.10 - 17:46 -
Lianne Angela Smith is escorted by Catalan police. EFE
When last week this newspaper reported on the capture of one of Britain’s most wanted criminals, Martin Anthony Smith, in Barcelona, no one could have imagined the tragic events that were about to unfold.
On Tuesday this week the bodies of two British children, aged five years and 11 months, were found in a hotel room in Lloret de Mar (Gerona), apparently suffocated by their mother, the wife of Martin Anthony Smith.
Smith, who was on the Crimestoppers most wanted list for rape and indecent assault, had been living in a flat in central Barcelona with his wife, Lianne Angela, and the two children, Rebecca and Daniel. Smith was the father of Daniel while Rebecca was the fruit of a previous relationship. Lianne and her daughter had been reported missing in the UK in 2007 and Martin had been wanted by police since he skipped bail in 2008.
The Catalan police finally caught up with Smith on May 7th and on Tuesday he was extradited to the UK where he appeared in a Carlisle court on Wednesday. He was wanted on 13 charges of rape and indecent assault as well as jumping bail. One of the minors he is accused of abusing is the elder daughter of Lianne, one of her two, now adult children from a previous marriage.
On Tuesday it was Lianne herself who asked the receptionist at the Hotel Miramar in Lloret, where she had been staying with her two children, to call the police and an ambulance. The emergency services found the dead bodies of the five year old girl and 11 month old baby boy covered in sheets on the hotel room bed. They showed no signs of violence, and police suspect they died of suffocation, a detail the autopsy results will have to confirm. The examination will also attempt to establish whether the five year old girl had also been sexually abused by her father.
Lianne Angela Smith, 43, who was arrested in a state of shock, later confessed to killing her two children, and according to reports in the British press, left a confession note in the hotel.
A forensic psychologist, Bernat Noel Tiffon, speaking on Catalan Television, described the crime as “extended suicide”, when someone planning on taking their own life kills others rather than leaving them alone. Some sources indicate that Lianne could have only found out that her husband had abused her elder daughter for more than ten years when he was arrested earlier this month. This discovery for the woman who detectives describe as being mentally disturbed, combined with the fear that the social services would take her children away from her, is what most probably led her to book into the hotel in Lloret de Mar and plan to end it all.
Lianne, who was taken to Blanes police station, was due to appear before a judge either on Thursday or Friday, after a psychiatric examination.
Martin Smith had previously appeared on a British television programme as a medium.
