NSW woman who gave kids poison guilty

SYDNEY - A Sydney woman who gave her children rat poison before suffocating them has been found guilty of their manslaughter.

In the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Clifford Hoeben delivered his verdicts at the judge-alone trial.

The 31-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had pleaded not guilty to murdering her four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter in February 2008, on the grounds of mental illness.

But the judge accepted the crown contention that while she was not guilty of murder, she was guilty of manslaughter.

He said he was not persuaded that the extent of her mental illness was so severe that she was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the killings.

She told one psychiatrist her husband had betrayed her with another woman, which led her to try to commit suicide and kill her children.

She allegedly said she did not want to leave them behind.

While the judge was not satisfied she was suffering from a mental illness at the time, he found she was suffering from "substantial impairment by abnormality of the mind'.

The latter finding reduced her liability for murder to manslaughter.

Sentencing submissions will be heard on October 9.

- AAP