A mother who killed her young son and daughter in a Spanish hotel room after the family fled Lichfield will go on trial.

Lianne Smith has admitted suffocating Rebecca Smith, five, and Daniel Smith, aged 11 months, at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava in May 2010.

A jury at the Provincial Court in Girona, north east Spain, will now determine whether she is criminally responsible for two counts of murder.

Her lawyer has claimed she was in a state of "psychiatric disturbance" and suffering insurmountable fear when the tragedy happened.

The killings took place shortly after the children's father, Lianne's partner Martin Smith, was arrested in Barcelona by Spanish police acting on a European Arrest Warrant. He was deported to the UK.

The family had been living in Spain since 2007 after fleeing Lichfield, when Martin was accused of sexually abusing a young girl.

In December 2010, he was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court of 11 specimen charges of rape, attempted rape, indecency with a child and indecent assault.

The jury heard he used hypnosis, bullying and violence to groom and sexually abuse his victim between May 1995 to May 2004.

Last January, 46-year-old Martin Smith was found hanged in his cell at Strangeways prison in Manchester.

If found guilty, Smith faces 19 years in prison. Her trial is expected to last four days.