An Indian woman pharmacist in London has been charged with murdering three of her four children within weeks of their birth.

The Reading Crown Court on Tuesday heard that Trupti Patel, 35, hailing from Gujarat, suffocated Amar (13 weeks), Jamie (15 days) and Mia (22 days) 'against all the natural instincts of a mother'.

Trupti Patel, whose surviving child is eight, pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and blamed cot death for each tragedy. She sat impassively in the dock as details of her children's deaths were read out.

Trupti's husband Jayant Patel, 35, a manager in an IT firm, arrived at the court on Tuesday holding hands with his wife.

Post-mortem examinations on Amar, who died in 1997, and Jamie, who died in 1999, initially found no discernible cause of death. But when Mia died in 2001, she was found to have four broken ribs, consistent with 'adult hands squeezing the chest'.

Police were called and a review of the two other children's deaths found medical evidence that they had also been asphyxiated.

Prosecutor Paul Dunkels, QC, told the court: "It is the prosecution's case that this defendant killed three of her own children whilst they were babies and that she did so by restricting or obstructing the breathing of each child, either by squeezing the baby's chest so it could not expand in order to breathe, or by in some way obstructing the nose and mouth of the baby so it could not inhale or by a combination of both methods."