Scorched Earth

June 19, 2012 permalink

Here is an article about English mother Lianne Smith who killed her two children in preference to seeing them taken by social services. This is not the only case of filicide in anticipation of child removal. [1] [2] [3].

After Germany started its invasion of the USSR, Joseph Stalin made a radio broadcast on July 3, 1941:

In case of a forced retreat... all rolling stock must be evacuated, the enemy must not be left a single engine, a single railway car, not a single pound of grain or gallon of fuel. The collective farmers must drive off all their cattle and turn over their grain to the safe keeping of the state authorities for transportation to the rear. All valuable property, including non-ferrous metals, grain and fuel that cannot be withdrawn must be destroyed without fail. In areas occupied by the enemy, guerilla units....must set fire to forests, stores and transports.

This scorched earth policy contributed to the eventual Soviet victory over the forces of Nazi Germany.

Lianne Smith may not have had an understanding of the financial incentives, but she knew that her enemy, social services, wanted the children for something. Her scorched earth approach made the same kind of sense to her that it did for Stalin. The legal and medical system refuses to recognize the purpose of her actions, treating her only as criminally insane.

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Mum killed her kids amid fears social services would take them away

ON TRIAL ... Lianne Smith is led away from court by armed police.

Published on Tuesday 19 June 2012 10:15

A MOTHER from Tyneside who suffocated her young son and daughter in a Spanish hotel gave them a “perfect holiday” before killing them, a court heard.

Lianne Smith, 45, from North Shields, admits smothering Rebecca, five, and Daniel, 11 months, with a plastic bag at the Miramar Hotel in Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava in May 2010.

She went on trial yesterday at the Provincial Court in Girona, north-east Spain.

Her defence is seeking an acquittal, claiming she was in a state of “psychiatric disturbance”.

If found guilty, she faces a total of 38 years in prison.

The killings took place shortly after her partner, Martin Smith, 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, when a girl accused Mr Smith of sexually abusing her. After he was deported to the UK, his partner became obsessed with the idea British social services were in Spain to take her children away from her.

Smith refused to answer questions from the prosecution, as is her right under Spanish law. But the jury was shown a video of a statement she made to police the day after the children died.

In the video, a tearful Smith told police: “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. My daughter didn’t want to go.

“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. It was not just the children, it was me as well.”

The court heard that after killing the children, 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. Answering questions from her lawyer, Jenifer Lahoz Abos, she explained she had gone to Lloret after seeing two people outside her house.

“I knew and I could feel they were social services and had come to take the children, and I love my children.”

Smith said she had killed the children while they slept and they offered no resistance.

She said she felt as if “someone else” had done the killing.

Before trying to take her own life, she left four notes and an envelope containing money for the hotel.

In one she said “lies” had been told about her partner, who she described as an “innocent man”.

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 in that case heard he had used hypnosis, bullying and violence to groom and sexually abuse the girl between May 1995 and May 2004.

Last January, he was found hanged in his cell at Strangeways Prison in Manchester.

* The trial continues.

Twitter: @shieldsgazette

Source: Shields Gazette (Tynesdale England)