WARNING: This story contains graphic and sensitive content.
Lauren Dickason is a “mentally disordered woman with a vulnerable personality” and has a “limited capacity to manage stress”, but she was not insane and has no infanticide defence, a top psychiatrist says.
She has also revealed Dickason told her she was “angry” at being resuscitated following her failed suicide attempt after killing her three children.
“I never anticipated living through this,” she told forensic psychiatrist Dr Simone McLeavey.
“I never thought I’d have to deal with this... What I’ve done is irreversible.”
McLeavey said while the accused murderer’s despair and distress were obvious, she did not believe she could rely on infanticide or insanity as defences.
A jury at Dickason’s High Court triple murder trial is continuing to hear evidence from psychiatric experts about whether the accused was insane at the time she killed her daughters - and whether this is a case of infanticide.
The South African woman admits she killed Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla in September 2021.
But she has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and has mounted a defence of insanity or infanticide.
So far, extensive evidence has been presented about the 42-year-old’s life - her upbringing, marriage, the gruelling fertility treatment she underwent to have children and her long battle with anxiety and depression.
The jury 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.
Today, Dr Simone McLeavey is giving evidence - one of five experts to take the stand during the trial.
Three experts support the defence position of insanity and infanticide, and the others support the Crown case.
McLeavey is a consultant psychiatrist at Hillmorton Hospital for Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury, formerly the Canterbury District Health Board.
She is the sole treating clinician responsible for the oversight and treatment of mentally disordered offenders like Dickason and works with a “diverse” range of mental illnesses.
McLeavey was the first of the experts to interview Dickason - her first session just six days after the alleged murders.
She outlined her interviews with Dickason and the information she considered in forming her professional opinion on the accused.
She then started reading her findings - as Dickason sat and cried.
McLeavey said while the was no question Dickason had a “disease of the mind”, there simply was not any evidence of insanity.
“It remains my opinion that the defendant’s disease of mind did not seriously impair her reality, testing ability and capacities thereof such that she did not know the alleged offending was morally wrong, having regard to the commonly accepted standards of right and wrong,” she said.
“Any altruistic motivation was, in my opinion, fueled more so by a need for control and anger.”
She said that stemmed from a “vulnerable” Dickason finding the thought of her husband remarrying after her suicide - and another woman parenting her children - untenable.
“Accordingly, I am of the opinion that this is a tragic case where a mentally disordered woman with a vulnerable personality killed her children in the context of the situation which she perceived to be beyond her limited capacity to manage stress ... in addition to underlying mental illness.
“Taking these factors into consideration, on the balance of probability, I am of the opinion the defendant would not be eligible for an insanity defence.”
McLeavey then turned to the infanticide defence.
She said while Dickason had an “abnormal mental health state”, she “cannot unequivocally subscribe” to the theory that the “balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth”.
That was partly because of Dickason’s “propensity for depression” dating back to when she was 15 years old.
She said Dickason suffered “a relapse of depression and anxiety disturbance from mid to late June 2021″ that arose out of her life circumstances.
That exacerbated her “life-long propensity towards anxiety and perfectionism” and “entrenched personality trait ... of demanding very high standards” from herself with “the tendency towards self-criticism for any action or perceived failure to meet these standards”.
McLeavey said there was no correlation between Dickason’s “reproductive issues” and “psychological psychiatric wellbeing presentation”.
“It is my opinion on the balance of probability, there is no evidence that the defendant has an infanticide defence available.”
Earlier she told the court that when admitted to Hillmorton, Dickason’s mental state deteriorated.
She was nursed “intensely” 24 hours a day as she was considered a suicide risk.
While initially she “struggled to come to terms with the gravity” of her situation, once her mind was less “clouded”, she spiralled.
“She continued to have morbid thoughts and suicidal intentions,” she said.
Dickason restricted or refused food and fluid in a bid to harm herself, as she had no access to any other means.
McLeavey said she was “angry at being resuscitated” and told her: “I never anticipated living through this - I never thought I’d have to deal with this.”
Defence expert Dr Susan Hatters-Friedman - a forensic and reproductive psychiatrist - told the jury Dickason’s actions were that of a parent killing “out of love” rather than out of anger or hate.
“She had been severely depressed and had developed psychotic thinking,” she said.
“She attempted to kill herself … she viewed the world as dangerous for her children to grow up in.
“She saw a joint suicide and filicide as a way out of this for her beloved children and herself … She thought she was getting her children to safety.”
She said when Dickason killed the girls, she was effectively insane.
“She was ... labouring under a disease of the mind to such an extent that it rendered her incapable of knowing that the act was morally wrong,” she said.
“Having regard to the commonly accepted standards of right and wrong, it is my opinion that her disease of the mind at the time of the offending was a major depressive disorder with mood-congruent psychotic features.”
She also said it was a clear case of infanticide.
“It is further my opinion that at the time of her alleged offending, the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of a disorder of consequence upon childbirth - specifically, she had been suffering from a severe depression which was closely tied to her infertility, pregnancy loss, postpartum and parenting.”
Crown expert Dr Erik Monasterio opined while there was no doubt Dickason had a mental illness, it did not extend far enough for her to have a defence of insanity or infanticide.
Further, he found there was no evidence of an altruistic motive and it was more likely that Dickason killed out of “anger and frustration”.
“She systematically strangled the children and seemingly methodically checked for vital signs before resorting to smothering them until they were dead,” he said.
“The alleged offences are unlikely to have been impulsive.
“In my opinion, as the defendant maintained awareness and behaved systematically, there is no evidence that she was in an automatic state or that she did not understand the nature and quality of her actions at the material time.”
Monasterio said as Dickason had battled depression since she was 15, she could not claim her “disease of the mind” was connected to childbirth, thus removing infanticide as a defence.
“She had a history of these symptoms before pregnancy … the depressive disorder … occurred well before the defendant’s pregnancy … the depression was already there before she gave birth, so it cannot be called postpartum,” he said.
“It is likely that the effects of pregnancy and adaptation to the demands of motherhood and the care of three young children contributed to but did not fully account for the defendant’s major depressive disorder at the time of the children’s birth.”
“There is no evidence the defendant has an infanticide defence available.”
Monasterio said he “accepts without reservation” Dickason had “continuing fluctuations with mood and anxiety symptoms”.
However, on the balance of probabilities, her mood disorder had “remitted” at the time of the alleged murders.
He could not say “beyond a reasonable doubt” that was the case - but that was the job of the jury, not him.
“On the balance of probabilities, my opinion still stands,” he said.
“The defendant had a relatively high level of functioning in these days [before the girls died]. Her mood disturbance was impinging and weighing on her - but she was engaging in complex tasks that required attention and concentration.
“She had sufficient capacity to appreciate what was occurring at the time of the alleged offence - therefore on the balance of probabilities, the defence of insanity is not available.”
Monasterio reiterated there was no evidence in his opinion of an altruistic motive - where a parent kills a child out of love and fear of what will happen to them if they continue to live. The defence has told the jury Dickason’s case is a clear example of this.
“For an altruistic motive, there has to be a sufficient concern that the children needed to be killed in order to spare them the suffering of living ... I have found, in particular through social media communications ... no evidence of that.
“I accept the defendant has provided motive of altruism to other experts - but to me, she did not give an account that would justify that position.”
He said it was not his role to decide on Dickason’s fate, just to give his professional opinion.
“Ultimately, the position sits with the jury … and not with me,” he said.
Lauren Anne Dickason is on trial in the High Court at Christchurch before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury of eight women and four men.
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.
Last week, Crown prosecutor Andrew 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”.
The trial is expected to run for at least another week.
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