In a case that has shocked mense across the globe, a South African mother has gone on trial in New Zealand for the murder of her three young daughters.
According to New Zealand news website, stuff.co.nz, prosecutor Andrew McRae opened the Crown’s case on Monday, where he revealed how on the evening of September 16, 2021, Lauren Dickason killed her three daughters, Liané, 6, and two-year-old twins Maya and Karla.
The three children were “asphyxiated by way of cable ties applied to the neck”, he said.
When this failed, she smothered them with their own blankets.
The family had arrived in Timaru in August 2021 to begin their new lives after Dickason’s husband Graham, an orthopaedic surgeon, got a job at Timaru Hospital.
Dickason had worked as a doctor in Pretoria before emigrating.
They had just come out of mandatory Covid-19 isolation and had been in their new home for only a week when the tragedy occurred.
The prosecution argues that these actions were not the result of a mental disturbance, but a deliberate act of murder.
They say Dickason, driven by frustration and resentment, killed her kids for misbehaving and knew exactly what she was doing.
But according to the defence, led by Kerryn Beaton KC, Dickason was a loving mother and wife who had a history of depression, dating back to her teenage years.
According to Beaton, Dickason was so unwell that day that she believed she had to kill herself and take her daughters with her.
Over the coming three weeks, the jury will have to consider whether Dickason was incapable of understanding the moral wrongness of her actions due to her mental disorder.