A Perfect Holiday

Lianne Smith and her husband, Martin Smith, moved to Spain in 2007. They left their home in Lichfield, Staffordshire, after Lianne’s eldest daughter from her first marriage accused Martin of sexually abusing her. On May 7, 2010, Spanish police arrested him in Barcelona on a European Arrest Warrant so he could be sent back to England to face the allegations.

Ten days later, Lianne was staying at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar, on the Costa Brava, with her two youngest children, five-year-old Rebecca and eleven-month-old Daniel. On the evening of May 17, 2010, she smothered both children as they slept. After failing in an attempt to take her own life, she went to the hotel’s staff and told them what she had done.

In December 2010, a jury at Manchester Crown Court found Martin Smith guilty of using hypnotism, bullying and violence to groom and abuse his stepdaughter. Within weeks of the verdict he was found hanged in his cell at Strangeways Prison. Lianne Smith went on trial in Girona in June 2012, where her lawyers argued she had acted out of psychiatric disturbance and overwhelming fear. The jury rejected that and convicted her of both murders on June 21, 2012. On July 3 she was sentenced to 30 years, 15 for each child.