A MOTHER who killed her young son and daughter in a Spanish hotel room was astonishingly calm when she showed police their bodies, a court heard today.

Lianne Smith, 45, has admitted smothering five-year-old Rebecca and 11-month-old Daniel with a plastic bag at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava in May 2010.

She is on trial at the Provincial Court in Girona, north-east Spain, so a jury can determine whether she is criminally responsible for the children's deaths.

Her defence is seeking an acquittal, claiming she was in a state of psychiatric disturbance and suffering insurmountable fear when the tragedy happened. If found guilty, she faces a total of 38 years in prison.

The police officers, who were identified to the court by their badge numbers as is customary in Spain, all agreed that Smith seemed calm when she confessed to the killings the day after carrying them out.

The first officer at the scene, Agent 504 of Lloret de Mar local police, said he was sent to the Miramar after a call from the hotels reception.

A guest staying in Room 101 had asked for police and an ambulance to be called, he said.

He described the moment he entered the room, saying: "I closed the door and told the woman to stay still.

"She just pointed to the bed, and I saw little knuckles, a baby's knuckles, pointing out from under the sheets.

"First I found a baby and then a little girl, and I could see they were both dead.

"The woman was calm, she was not saying anything, so I went out on the balcony and called the control room to let them know what was happening."

Yesterday the court heard that after killing the children on May 17, Smith tried to take her own life by cutting herself with razors, covering her head with a plastic bag, hanging herself with telephone cable and drowning in a bath.

The killings took place shortly after her partner, Martin Smith, originally from North Shields, was arrested in Barcelona by Spanish police acting on a European arrest warrant.

The family had been living in Spain since 2007 after fleeing Lichfield, Staffordshire, after allegations were made against Mr Smith that he sexually abused a young girl.

After Mr Smith was deported to the UK, his wife became obsessed with the idea that British social services were in Spain to take her children away from her.

Lloret de Mar was where she and Martin Smith went when they first arrived from England, so she went there to hide with her children.