[ad_1]
George Heard/Pool
Lauren Dickason is accused of murdering her three young daughters in Timaru in 2021.
This story contains details that many will find upsetting
The father of three children killed by their mother is expected to give evidence from South Africa on Tuesday.
South African mother Lauren Anne Dickason is accused of murdering her twin daughters Maya and Karla, 2, and their older sister Liané, 6, on September 16, 2021, soon after the family moved to Timaru.
Dickason, who has been held in custody at a psychiatric unit, has pleaded not guilty and will rely on an insanity and infanticide defence during the three-week trial in Christchurch. Read Martin van Beynen’s account of the trial’s first day on The Press here.
On Monday, Prosecutor Andrew McRae told the court the three children were “asphyxiated by way of cable ties applied to the neck”, he said.
Dickason retrieved the cable ties from the garage after the children had been misbehaving, McRae said.
She told them they were going to make necklaces and placed cable ties around their necks, he told the court.
When they failed to die, she smothered them with their own blankets and made an attempt on her own life, McRae said.
Supplied
Lauren Dickason is accused of killing her three children, Liane, 6, Maya, 2, and Karla, 2, in Timaru.
“The Crown says there was an anger here in the killing of her children,” he said. “There is no medical defence here, it is murder.”
“The Crown say the motive here was simple. She snapped. It was the straw that snapped the camel’s back. Her anger took over, and she killed them. An action she now regrets, but the Crown say [it] was not a disturbance of the mind,” said McRae.
Defence counsel Kerryn Beaton KC gave her opening address to the jury on Monday.
Dickason loved her children and yet she killed them, she said. Dickason was experiencing a major depressive episode and thought she had to kill herself and take her daughters with her, Beaton said.
She had depression from her teenage years and suffered from postpartum depression, she said.
“Lauren had told her husband in 2019 and 2021 that she had thoughts of harming her children. She was scared of those thoughts and feelings … and sought help.
“Despite that, she was loving, including on the day they died. They were not mistreated or abused until that night”.
SUPPLIED
Liané, 6, and her twin sisters Maya and Karla, 2, were found dead at a property in Timaru.
Dickason was unwell, and tragically, no one knew how unwell until it was too late, Beaton said. This was clear in how Dickason attempted to take her own life on the night, she said.
“I suggest an issue is why. Why would she do this? Is she just a bad person who wanted to be free of her children … who planned this all along? Why then, did she try to kill herself?”
Where to get help
The Mental Health Foundation offers four core helplines, all of which are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- Need to talk? – free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor
- Lifeline – 0800 543 354 or text 4357
- Youthline – 0800 376 633, free text 234 or email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat
- Samaritans – 0800 726 666
[ad_2]