Last updated at 16:43, Saturday, 23 June 2012

The police officer who led the squad that investigated child rapist Martin Smith says it was the TV psychic’s decision to go on the run that ultimately led to his partner murdering her own children.

Lianne Smith

Detective Superintendent Andy Slattery believes his decision to flee sparked a chain of events that ended with former Carlisle woman Lianne Smith carrying out the killings in a Spanish hotel room.

Her conviction for the murders of Rebecca, five, and 11-month-old Daniel brings to an end a tragic series of events that encompass rape, an international manhunt, two court cases and three deaths.

She faces a up to 34 years in jail following her conviction for murder after a trial in Spain this week.

Martin Smith, 46, was found hanged in his prison cell in Manchester in January, where he was serving 16-years for sex crimes.

Lianne Smith smothered the children with a plastic bag at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava in May 2010.

The murders took place shortly after Martin Smith, with whom she had lived in a string of homes around Carlisle and north Cumbria, was arrested in Barcelona.

He had fled justice in Britain, where he was wanted for sex crimes.

The trial heard that after he was deported, Lianne Smith thought British social services were in Spain to take the children away from her.

Det Supt Slattery was the head of Cumbria’s public protection unit at the time of Martin Smith’s arrest, said:

“He was a rapist. He chose not to face justice and went on the run. He took Lianne and their daughter away with him. The chain of events he set in place has caused this.”

Det Supt Slattery said Lianne Smith “willingly went on the run with a man accused of rape”.

“People will find that difficult to understand,” he added. “It is a very sad and tragic case. There’s nothing to celebrate in any of this.”

Lianne and Martin Smith met in October 1992 through a dating agency. She was going through a divorce from her first husband and was living in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear.

Martin Smith, originally from North Shields, had been a singer in a band, had worked as a sound engineer, at a holiday camp and in a pantomime company.

Lianne is later said to have developed a “total emotional” dependency on Martin and they moved to Cumbria.

She worked as a manager at Cumbria County Council’s children’s services department and they lived at homes in Carlisle in Alexander Street, off London Road, and Castlesteads Drive, Sandsfield Park.

They also lived at Scaleby Hill and Brampton. The daughter, Rebecca – known as Becky – attended Yewtots parent and toddler sessions at Yewdale Community Centre in Carlisle for about a year.

Former colleagues of Lianne Smith’s at Cumbria County Council are said to have regarded her as “a peculiar character”.

One former colleague told the News & Star after Thursday’s verdict that she was “really shocked” to hear what Lianne Smith had done.

She said she remembered on one occasion Martin Smith coming to work to pick Lianne up. Lianne did not work directly with children.

Martin Smith first fell under the media spotlight when he was named a wanted criminal by crimefighting charity Crimestoppers and the national Serious and Organised Crime Agency in September 2009.

He had been arrested by Cumbrian detectives in November 2007 for the sex crimes he was later convicted of while living in Staffordshire, but released on bail. He then fled to Spain with Lianne and Rebecca.

An international appeal was launched for information – and details emerged about the life of the man at the centre of the hunt.

He had spent time with a firm called Target Management in Brampton.

But the headlines would centre around his role as a professional medium, in which he appeared on television in 2007 on a programme featuring a Cumbrian country house.

Smith was asked to join the team of satellite TV ghost show Most Haunted as a guest medium for an investigation into Brougham Hall, near Penrith.

On a website Smith told how he was drawn to spiritualism after “seeing lights around [himself]” when he went to sleep as a young child. He went on to train at the centre for psychic studies

During Martin Smith’s time on the run Daniel was born. The next time the fugitive was heard of publicly was in May 2010, when it was revealed he had been arrested in Barcelona.

He was stopped by the Spanish Civil Guard and checks alerted officers there to his wanted status in the UK. Smith was then moved to custody in Madrid and moves put in place to seek to extradite him.

It is understood Cumbria Constabulary had made no moves to have the children taken into care or removed from Lianne Smith.

The force’s involvement was solely to track Martin Smith and bring him back to the UK.

He was flown back to Britain to be put before Carlisle Magistrates Court.

It was here it was revealed that since his arrest the two young children had been killed – and a Spanish court later ruled there was evidence Lianne was responsible.

Martin Smith’s court case for sex crimes followed and in December 2010 he was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of using hypnosis, bullying and violence to groom and carry out sexual abuse.

Last January, the 46-year-old was found hanged in his cell at Strangeways Prison in Manchester.

Then Lianne Smith’s court case followed. A jury at the Provincial Court in Girona, Spain, found Smith guilty of murder charges after deciding she was criminally responsible for the children’s deaths.

Smith was seeking an acquittal, claiming she was in a state of “psychiatric disturbance” and suffering insurmountable fear when the tragedy happened.

But the jury rejected her claim that she was “totally disturbed” or she was so scared she could not be expected to act in any other way when she committed the murders.

Judge Adolfo Garcia Morales is expected to release a written sentence in the coming weeks.

Victor Pillado Quintas, for the prosecution said: “Justice has been done, these were abominable crimes.”

Lloret de Mar was the first place Smith visited when she arrived in Spain, so she took her children to hide there.

After spending two days with Daniel and Rebecca at the Miramar, Smith suffocated them as they slept on the night of May 17, 2010. First she smothered her son with a plastic bag and immediately used the bag to kill her daughter. Smith then tried to take her own life.

After failing in her suicide attempts, she went down to reception at 1.30pm the following day and asked for police and an ambulance to be called. She let an officer from Lloret de Mar police into the room, pointed to a bed where the dead children lay covered by sheets and confessed to killing them.

The jury was shown footage of the interview police conducted with Smith in the room next door to where the murders took place.

She said her family had reached the “end of the road” after Martin Smith was arrested and deported.

She said: “I gave my children a three-day holiday, a perfect holiday, we were very, very happy.

“This was the end of the road, I knew my children would be taken back to England. So I know it’s not right to take another life, but I felt I was in a corner and my intention was for me and my children to go.”

First published at 08:56, Saturday, 23 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk