A MOTHER might have tried to smother her two little girls before killing them with multiple stab wounds, a murder trial jury heard today.

The Home Office pathologist who examined the bodies of Samira Lupidi's daughters, Evelyn and Jasmine, told Bradford Crown Court she could have placed a pillow over their faces before knifing them repeatedly in the chest.

Dr Kirsten Hope said the cause of death of both children was multiple stab wounds.

Lupidi, 24, denies murdering Evelyn Lupidi, aged three, and 17-month-old Jasmine Weaver, at a women's refuge in Bradford on November 17 last year.

She has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The jury has heard how staff at the refuge found the little girls lying motionless on their single beds after Lupidi shouted: “I killed them. I hurt them.”

Paramedics raced to the scene but the children could not be saved. They were pronounced dead at Bradford Royal Infirmary, prosecutor Peter Moulson QC said.

Lupidi was not in court this morning to hear Dr Hope's post mortem examination findings.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Edis, told the jury: "The evidence was likely to be very distressing to the defendant," and she had chosen to remain downstairs.

Dr Hope said that both children had suffered nine stab wounds and multiple small incised wounds to the front of their chests.

Sufficient force was used to cut through three of Evelyn's ribs.

She had tiny blood spots on her face that suggested an attempt had been made to asphyxiate her.

Dr Hope said that Evelyn had bruising to the left side of her neck and grazes that could have been made by pressure from fingernail tips.

One of Jasmine's ribs was completely cut through and she also had tiny marks on her face suggestive of smothering. She had no marks on her mark.

Dr Hope said that if the little girls had been smothered at some point, it had not in any way contributed to the cause of their deaths.

She told how she was shown a large blood-stained stainless steel kitchen knife that was recovered from the girls' bedroom at the refuge.

Dr Andrew Cobb, a forensic medical examiner, assessed Lupidi as fit to be detained and questioned after the killings.

He found her "not overtly mentally ill" but thin to the point of gauntness, and depressed.

She told him: "I'm a lovely mum - I used to be," the jury heard.

Yesterday, the court was told that Lupidi ran out of her room at the refuge with her hands smeared in blood saying "I killed them, I hurt them."

Lupidi and the girls had spent the night at the refuge after she complained to the police that her partner, the children's father, Carl Weaver, had been violent to her, although she had no evidence of any injuries.

The case continues.