Triple murderer Lauren Dickason believes the sentence handed down to her this week was “fair and just”, according to a message her supporters say they received after her court appearance.
Dickason, 43, was found guilty of murdering her daughters Liané, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla at their Timaru home in September 2021.
The South African family had emigrated to New Zealand just weeks earlier and arrived in the South Island after spending their required two weeks in managed isolation in an Auckland hotel.
Dickason’s husband Graham, an orthopaedic surgeon, had a new job at Timaru Hospital and the family was looking forward to a fresh start in a country much easier and safer than their own.
The fresh start was short-lived and ended in tragedy.
Last year Dickason admitted smothering the children but claimed she was so mentally unwell she could not be held criminally responsible for their deaths.
She pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder, mounting a defence of insanity or infanticide.
After an exhaustive five-week trial, a jury accepted the Crown case over Dickason’s version of events and convicted her on all charges.
On Wednesday, Justice Cameron Mander said that imposing a life sentence would be manifestly unjust and that it was clear to him that Dickason’s mental illness was a causative factor in the killings.
“The murders were committed with a high level of brutality,” he said.
“Sentencing a parent for the murder of three children is unprecedented ... not only were the children vulnerable because of their age but they were entirely dependent upon you as the mother who they look to for care and protection and would have viewed you as an unconditional source of safety and love.
“The ending represents a fundamental breach of trust ... Your actions extended over some period ... However, I do not consider you were lashing out or venting your anger at the children ... the systematic and methodical way you did that does not support a finding that you were simply an angry mother.”
While he did not discount Dickason’s “experience of anger and frustration at the three little girls”, he considered that was a further stressor that added to her “sense of hopelessness”.
“As a result, you were distorted ... You genuinely believe they would be better off dead because you saw no future.
“I am satisfied ... the tragic event would not have occurred but for the major depressive episode from which you were suffering.
“That night, you were suffering from a major depressive disorder marked by a general sense of hopelessness. You were in despair at the situation. You found yourself ... isolated without family and, as you perceived it, you were effectively alone ... you saw the only way out as being suicide in which the children had to join you in death ... you somehow perceived the children’s deaths as a means of alleviating a source of stress and despair or some combination of both.
“There is a direct causal connection between your mental illness and your offending, which significantly reduces your moral culpability as a result.”
Justice Mander handed down a finite sentence of 18 years for each murder, to be served concurrently.
He did not impose a life sentence, nor did he order her to serve a minimum term of imprisonment before she could seek parole.
Finally, he made an order detaining Dickason as a special patient. If and when she is well enough, that order can be reviewed and she can be transferred to prison – but for now she is to be held in hospital.
Soon after sentencing, Dickason released a public statement.
“I continue to undergo treatment for severe mental illness and I owe it to everyone and myself to get mentally healthier,” she said.
“I will do whatever it takes, although I know that will never change the past.”
A “note from Lauren” was posted on a Facebook page the day after sentencing.
Members of the page are supporters of the convicted killer and her family. They include some, such as family members, who know her personally and many who have never and will never meet her.
Dickason has provided several messages for the group, assumed to have been passed on to the page administrators by people who are allowed regular contact with her.
“Yesterday was a win for maternal mental health,” said the latest.
“Justice Mander heard me. His decision is fair and just.
“Thank you all for your love and support over the last year.
“Thank you for believing my version of events – that I am not an angry, jealous and selfish person; but rather a mother suffering from a severe mental illness while trying to raise my three beautiful little girls and supporting my husband in all his endevours [sic].
“I believe you can have it all, but just not all at once.
“Be kind to yourselves and talk until someone hears you. Do not be ashamed to admit if you can’t cope.
“There is a way out which doesn’t have to end in tragedy.”
Dickason’s family spoke at length at sentencing about her mental health, begging Justice Mander for “mercy”.
Her father, Malcolm Fawkes, said: “Naturally, our whole family was devastated by what happened to the three precious little girls and to our daughter Lauren to have caused this whole tragic saga.
“We have forgiven her but are obviously still struggling to understand the maternal mental health issues which caused this tragedy.
“It is extremely technical and complex for us as average people in the street, we are not forensic psychiatrists nor psychologists. All we know is a simple statement – nobody in their right mind would have done something like that.”
Dickason was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder when she was a teenager.
Her father claimed to have no knowledge of that.
“We did not know of the turmoil, continually churning inside a lonely Lauren while she put on a brave face ... We did not know she had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and ... we also did not know about the infertility which required donor eggs.
“We are disappointed that Lauren does not appear to have been correctly diagnosed, treated and managed in South Africa for her mental health problems.”
Another relative, who cannot be named, said a “harsh sentence” would not do anything to “help restore the hearts and souls of those affected”.
“If anything, it simply perpetuates the hurt and prolongs the grief,” she said.
“We believe the greatest victim in this whole situation is actually Lauren herself.
“What happened that night could not have been at the hands of the Lauren that we know so well.
“At times, we are still in disbelief that the girls are gone and that our loving Lauren, empathetic in all ways, could have done it.
“We regret not realising the significance of Lauren’s depression and that her postpartum depression lasted for years after the girls’ birth ... if only we had known, we could have stepped in and supported her, immediately tried to get her the help that she needed and take the children to give her the time to process and work on her mental health.”
Anna Leask is a Christchurch-based reporter who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 18 years with a particular focus on family violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz.
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