On Monday, the opening day of the trial, the court heard how Mrs Smith had
smothered each of her children with a plastic bag.
She claimed to have done so because she feared they would be taken into care
after her partner, a fugitive paedophile wanted in Britain, was arrested at
their home in Barcelona.
After spending the night alongside their lifeless bodies she walked to the
hotel reception and asked them to call police.
Anna Savelieva, the hotel receptionist told the court on Tuesday: “I
asked her if she needed help and she said ‘Just call the police, I will talk
with them’.”
When police arrived she was sitting in the hotel reception “constantly
fixing herself up, tying and untying a neckerchief”.
“I was shocked by her attitude, the astonishing calmness and coldness she
displayed,” another officer, agent 2681 from the Mossos d’Esquadra, the
Catalan regional police force, told the court.
The murders came days after Martin Smith, 46, the presumed father of the two
dead children, had been arrested in Barcelona on a European arrest warrant.
The couple, who were unmarried despite sharing the same surname, had fled to
Spain from Lichfield, Staffs, in 2007, after Mr Smith was accused of
sexually abusing – over a period of 10 years – Mrs Smith’s eldest daughter,
who waived her right to anonymity.
The couple took Rebecca with them and Daniel was born in the Catalan city in
2009.
Mr Smith, a former TV psychic and hypnotist, was extradited to Britain the day
the children were killed, and in March 2011 was convicted of repeated rape
of a minor and jailed for 16 years. He was found hanged in his cell at
Manchester’s Strangeways prison in January.
Mrs Smith faces a total of 38 years in prison if found guilty. Her lawyer is
claiming she was in a state of “psychiatric disturbance” and is
asking for an acquittal.
The trial continues.
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