A MOTHER convicted of killing her two children has admitted murdering her first-born in an almost identical way 15 years ago.

Maxine Robinson, 35, had always denied having anything to do with the mysterious deaths of any of her three children.

But she was found guilty of murdering five-month-old Anthony and 19-month-old Christine in 1993 and jailed for life at Sheffield Crown Court.

Yesterday, she admitted smothering nine-month-old Victoria four years earlier - a case which had been treated as cot death until Robinson made a prison cell confession last year.

She is now facing the prospect of at least a further 15 years in the "she-wing" at Durham Jail, where she has been held since her conviction in 1995.

She had been told by lawyers that she could argue her responsibility was diminished when Victoria was suffocated at their County Durham home. But she told her legal team she wanted to take responsibility for the death and be "punished to the extreme".

Robinson made a brief appearance at Newcastle Crown Court yesterday and spoke only twice - whispering to confirm her name and to enter a plea.

Defence barrister Franz Muller told the court how two psychiatrists had concluded she would have been entitled to use the defence of diminished responsibility at a trial, which was scheduled for next month.

But despite legal advisors urging her not to enter a guilty plea to murder, Robinson was determined the case went ahead yesterday.

She fought back tears as she entered her guilty plea to murdering Victoria on June 15, 1989. Sentence was adjourned to be heard before a judge of the High Court.

In April 1995, she was given two life sentences for murdering Anthony and Christine as they slept in the Brooms, Ouston, near Chester-le-Street.

Police did not investigate the earlier death until Robinson confessed in jail last January that she was responsible for it.