After killing the girls, Kumari-Baker, a hotel worker, rang a friend to say: 'I have done something terrible.'

In a hand-written note she left at the murder scene, she wrote: 'I don't want them to get hurt as I did.'

She concluded the note by writing: 'My kids will not be a burden to anyone anymore.'

After the verdicts, police inspector Jim McCrorie said: 'In 25 years in the police service I have never before investigated such an upsetting or sickening crime. '

In a statement read out by his brother, the girls' father David Baker said of Kumari-Baker: 'I take comfort in the knowledge that I will in time be with my girls again. She will not.'

'Not a day passes when I don't think of my girls. Part of my heart was taken when they died and I long for the day when we shall be reunited.'

Cambridgeshire County Council announced it was launching a serious case review to look into what happened, as the spotlight turned on the role of the local authority and their handling of the family.