WARNING: This story contains graphic and sensitive content.
Lauren Dickason told a psychiatrist she stopped taking her antidepressant medication for “immigration purposes”, a jury has heard at her High Court murder trial.
Dr Justin Barry-Walsh said the medication the accused triple murderer had been taking would have been “well clear of her system within days” and her mental state was so fragile she “left herself open to an increased risk of deterioration”.
Dickason, 42, admits smothering her children Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla to death at their Timaru home in September 2021.
But she denies it was murder and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity or infanticide.
Her trial - before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury - is in its fourth week.
Barry-Walsh gave evidence yesterday and is now being cross-examined by Crown Prosecutor Andrew McRae.
He believes Dickason’s depression was severe enough at the time of the offending to support defences of both insanity and infanticide.
Today he revealed Dickason gave him three explanations as to why she stopped taking her antidepressants in early 2021.
She had been prescribed the drugs after admitting she’d had thoughts of harming or killing her children.
But after embarking on a wellness programme and improving her general health she decided to try living without the medication.
She did not consult with her doctor before doing this.
This morning Barry-Walsh said Dickason also told him she felt the drugs were not working for her, and about “coming off it for immigration purposes.
Dickason and her husband Graham emigrated to New Zealand in August 2021 after he secured a job as an orthopedic surgeon at Timaru Hospital.
When the family arrived in New Zealand their immigration advisor sought detailed information about Dickason’s mental health.
She was diagnosed with a depressive disorder when she was 15 and had struggled with her mental health since then - particularly during her journey to become a mother which included 17 rounds of IVF and the loss of a baby at 18 weeks gestation.
The day she killed the girls Dickason had been asked for more information about her diagnosis and the court earlier heard she felt there was “no hope” she’d be allowed to remain in the country.
Barry-Walsh told the court today that in his opinion Dickason “hadn’t fully recovered” from postpartum depression and the “multiple hit” of the “stressors” relating to her family’s emigration when she stopped her meds.
“Once she stopped she left herself at an increased risk of deterioration… it is not surprising her depression deteriorated,” he said.
When questioned about his assessment and opinion of Dickason, Barry-Walsh maintained his conclusion.
He said there was “an element of psychosis emerging at the time of the alleged offending”.
“She was developing psychotic symptoms as part of the depression at the time,” he said.
He also said he was certain Dickason was experiencing “mood-congruent delusions” the day she allegedly murdered the little girls.
He said it was common for people to hide such symptoms.
“This is a woman who overwhelmingly keeps things to herself… and people often keep delusions to themselves,” he said.
Barry-Walsh provided his formal repot to the court well before the trial, but said after sitting and listening to the evidence so far he was even more convinced Dickason did not know killing her children was “morally wrong” at the time and should not be held responsible.
He repeatedly refuted McRae’s suggestion that Dickason killed her kids out of frustration and rage with “no clear forethought” of taking her own life.
McRae posed that Dickason “got so angry killing the children and then, realising what she’s done, attempted suicide on herself”.
Barry-Walsh replied:
“I do not accept that anger is a plausible motive for what happened.
“I don’t accept it as a viable contention but yes if I put that to one side.... yes (McRae’s allegation) is consistent - but it is also consistent with someone who decided to suicide and kill her children.
“That behaviour is so driven, so determined that the most plausible explanation is the one I have advanced that - this woman was so depressed she decided she had to die, and she decided she hat to take the children with her.
“That is the only plausible explanation as to why she did what she did... it’s - tragically - easier to kill your children than yourself.”
When briefly re-examined by defence lawyer Anne Toohey, Barry-Walsh further reiterated his point.
“This was a deliberate, methodical, ghastly series of events where she didn’t just kill one of her children - she killed all three of her children, one after the other.
“That is not consistent with someone who is just angry... It just doesn’t get close in my view.”
Barry-Walsh is one of five experts called to give evidence at Dickason’s trial.
The jury has earlier heard from forensic and reproductive psychiatrist Dr Susan Hatters-Friedman for the defence and forensic psychiatrists Dr Erik Monasterio and Dr Simone McLeavey for the Crown.
There is one expert left to be called.
McRae and Dickason’s lawyers will then have a chance to give closing addresses to the jury before Justice Mander sums up the evidence in its entirety and sends them to deliberate their verdicts.
The trial is expected to run into a fifth week.
In the first three weeks of the trial the jury heard extensive evidence about Dickason’s life - her upbringing, marriage, the gruelling fertility treatment she underwent to have children and her long battle with anxiety and depression.
Jurors also watched footage of police interviews with Dickason and her husband Graham - who found his children dead in bed and his wife in need of medical attention when he returned from a work function.
Those first at the scene and people who met and engaged with the Dickason family when they arrived in Timaru took the stand to tell the court what they experienced - and hours o evidence was presented about messaging to and from the accused about her parenting and life struggles were read.
It was revealed too, that in days before the alleged murders she searched on the internet about fatal and lethal overdoses for children.
The defence called upon Dickason’s mother Wendy Fawkes and another close relative to speak about her mental state before she moved to Timaru.
Fawkes said her daughter’s condition before leaving South Africa was the worst she had ever seen her.
The Crown alleges Dickason murdered the children in a “calculated” way because she was frustrated, angry and resentful of them.
It acknowledges Dickason suffered from sometimes-serious depression, but maintains she knew what she was doing when she killed the girls.
Opening the Crown case on July 17 McRae alleged Dickason was an angry and frustrated woman who was “resentful of how the children stood in the way of her relationship with her husband” and killed them “methodically and purposefully, perhaps even clinically”.
The defence says Dickason was a severely mentally disturbed woman in the depths of postpartum depression and did not know the act of killing the children was morally wrong at the time of their deaths.
Further, it says she was “in such a dark place” she had decided to kill herself and felt “it was the right thing to do” to “take the girls with her”.