Family Holiday Ends in Tragedy As Two British Children Found Dead in Corfu

Two young British children were found fatally poisoned in a hotel suite in Greece yesterday as their father and his partner lay unconscious in a neighbouring room.

Christianne Shepherd, seven, and her six-year-old brother, Robert, appeared to have died within hours of coming into contact with a strong poison. Their father, Neil Shepherd, 38, and his partner, Ruth Beatson, 27, of Horbury, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, had suffered the same poisoning but survived. They were in a coma in a Corfu hospital last night. The family was on a half-term break in a luxury hotel at the resort of Gouvia Bay when the tragedy occurred.

A chambermaid at the Louis Corcyra beach hotel found the bodies after becoming concerned that the family had not left their rooms by late morning.

Greek police said they were investigating all possibilities, including the chance that they had suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, or may even have eaten poisonous mushrooms in a restaurant or in their suite at the hotel on Wednesday night.

Engineers are expected to be called in today to examine the bungalow where the family were staying to ascertain whether a gas leak could have occurred, leading to carbon monoxide poisoning, police said. A police spokesman said: "The doctor says it's poison, but a possible cause could be mushrooms. We are still investigating."

The children's mother, Sharon Woods, who lives in Wakefield with her husband Paul, was given the news by police from the West Yorkshire force yesterday.

Samples of contents from the victims' stomach have been sent to a university on the Greek mainland for toxicology tests, but it is expected to take up to three days for the results to be finalised. Postmortem examinations will be performed on the children's bodies today.