The sentencing hearing of Tania Clarence has started in the Old Bailey in the UK, after months of mourning and preparing.

You cannot understand what it is like every day of your life knowing that your children would die before you.

On April 22nd, over the Easter weekend, Tania took it upon herself to smother to death her three-year old twin sons and four-year old daughter whilst her husband was on holiday in South Africa.

The three children suffered from Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 2, a condition that causes overall muscle weakness, which both parents found incredibly difficult to cope with.

“She smothered the boys first while they were sleeping using a nappy so they would not smell her. She found it much harder to kill Olivia, and wrote a letter to her husband in the time between killing the boys and killing Olivia.”

The three bodies were discovered later that day by the nanny, who Tania’s mother had called after she started worrying as that she couldn’t get hold of her daughter.

Tania admitted to “manslaughter by diminished responsibility”. In her note she had written: “I’m so sorry I had to do this but I could not carry on. I also could not leave the children with Gary. It would have been too much for him”.

Check out The Independent for more info about the trial.