A British man is in hospital under police guard on the Greek island of Crete after he apparently threw himself off a hotel balcony with his two children in his arms, killing his six-year-old son and injuring his daughter, after a row with his wife.

The boy was taken to hospital in the popular resort town of Ierapetra, on the southern coast of Crete, but was pronounced dead with massive head and internal injuries two hours later.

The police, who declined to name the 32-year-old father, said they had no evidence to suggest that he had acted under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

They are instead examining the prospect of psychological strain. He is in hospital with a broken arm and leg in the nearby town of Agios Nikolaos.

Local police said that he jumped from the fourth floor of the Petramare hotel with his son and two-year-old daughter in his arms late on Tuesday night after arguing with his wife.

"He is under guard in the local hospital and has been charged with premeditated murder," said Ioannis Katrinis, the deputy police chief of Ierapetra.

The family’s daughter was said to be out of immediate danger but remained in hospital in the city of Heraklion, with her 34-year-old mother at her bedside. Hospital officials said she was too distressed to speak.

"The boy was in an extremely serious condition when he was brought in," said Nektarios Papavassiliou, the director of Lerapetra hospital.

"There were massive cranio-cerebral injuries and also internal abdominal bleeding. The girl, on the contrary, appeared to be unharmed. She must have fallen on top of the others."

He said that although Tuesday was a public holiday in Greece, doctors volunteered for duty at the hospital when news of the incident broke.

The police would not identify the family, claiming to be bound by European Union rules on personal privacy protection. They refused to discuss what the alleged row had been about.

The family had been in Lerapetra for several days as part of an organised tour holiday. The Petramare hotel is considered one of the smarter resorts in southern Crete, not frequented by the kind of rowdy British youths that routinely fill police cells elsewhere, mainly at Mallia in the north of the island.

Times Recommends

• Experts baffled by vanishing sea lions
• CIA caught in a dirty and secretive war
• Double life of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab