Warning: This story contains evidence from the trial which some readers may find extremely upsetting.
An expert witness has described Lauren Dickason's violent killing of her children as brutal and callous.
Forensic psychologist Ghazi Metoui told the court on Wednesday that Lauren's mind shifted from thinking about harming her children to actioning those thoughts due to a change in belief. When the murder-accused mum arrived in New Zealand she believed that life was no longer worth living for either her or her children.
He is the last expert witness to give evidence in the Lauren Dickason murder trial. He believes she has a defence of insanity and infanticide.
After Wednesday, the jury would have heard from five mental health experts who assessed Dickason after the children's death - three called by the defence and two by the Crown.
The Crown alleges Dickason murdered her little girls - 6-year-old Liané and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla - at their Timaru home on September 16, 2021.
The children were found dead by their dad Graham Dickason after he returned home from a work function.
Lauren has admitted to killing her children by smothering them to death but pleaded not guilty to murder. Her defence is arguing insanity and infanticide - that she did not know what she was doing at the time of the killings.
However, the Crown alleges Lauren is guilty of murder, saying she was aware of her actions before, during and after the crime.
The trial continues for its 18th day at the High Court in Christchurch before a jury of eight women and four men.
'Brutal', 'callous' killing
Metoui is a forensic psychologist who has extensive experience in cases of insanity. He spent 20 hours interviewing Lauren over nine occasions from December 2021 until April 2022 - the longest amount of time out of the expert witnesses.
Metoui told the jury he believed Lauren was suffering from a severe major depressive disorder that was an extension and part of a chronic postpartum depression.
Metoui said she was consumed by morbid thoughts of suicide and eventually filicide in the lead-up to the death of her children.
He said the alleged offending was carried out in a "very brutal, callous, violent, determined and sustained manner".
While the psychologist said Lauren was purposeful and deliberate throughout her offending, he said the severity of her depression and her perception of the world and herself as a mother meant she did not know her actions were morally wrong.
Metoui said the pattern Dickason provided of her filicidal rumination is consistent with the academic literature on filicide in depressed mothers. He referred to a recent joint New Zealand and Australian study which found psychotic mothers often kill their children without much planning whereas some depressed mothers may ruminate about killing their children for days or even weeks.
"Whereas previously Mrs Dickason understood the wrongfulness of her actions and could not bring herself to harm her children, the key variable that changed, in my opinion, was that at the time of the alleged index offending her beliefs became that life was no longer worth living for either her or her children - that all were better off dead," Metoui told the court.
"It was this cognitive shift that allowed her to allegedly offend in the manner that she did."
In Metoui's opinion, a defence of infanticide and insanity is available to Lauren.
'I was a failure'
Lauren told Metoui she was terrified by the thoughts she was having of harming her children and those ideations added to her feelings of being a bad mum.
He told the jury on Wednesday how not being able to get pregnant made Lauren feel like a failure.
"She kept returning to this theme of being a failure and that language 'failure' continued when she became a mother," he said.
The court has previously heard how Lauren, over the course of several years, went through a gruelling 16 cycles of IVF.
After four years of trying to conceive, the couple finally feel pregnant in 2012 with their first daughter they planned to name Sarah. However, Sarah died at 18-20 week gestation.
"I was a failure. I couldn't get pregnant and now I couldn't even keep the baby," Lauren told the psychologist.
In 2014, Liané was conceived via a donor egg and was born in September of that year.
Lauren said she was struggling with her mental health but concealed it from her family and friends because she didn't want to feel "ungrateful" after years of waiting, they finally had a child.
After 18 months, when Liané was old enough to attend kindergarten, her mood bounced back to its normal level. Lauren said she felt her bond with her daughter improved and she no longer felt depressed, as she could take time for herself.
"I loved her, she was a lovely child… I was so proud of her. I wanted to eat up every moment," she told the psychologist.
Lauren said her depression resurfaced after the twins were born, especially after Karla had surgery to repair her cleft lip and she spent almost 24/7 with her at the hospital, Metoui told the jury.
During her interviews with Metoui, she described previous instances she thought of harming her children, he said.
"I felt disgusted at myself," she told him. "Why am I thinking like this? It is terrifying me, making me feel even worse about myself.
"Even when I had these thoughts I loved them even more. I felt like I was taking them away [by moving to New Zealand] from who they knew and loved and I was scared for them for what lay ahead."
Lauren said she was feeling out of control and like a useless mother, according to Metoui. She said they should never have moved to New Zealand.
'It was meant to be a happy ending'
Metoui has told the jury Lauren's account to him about the day of the alleged offending.
On September 16, while her children were are school, Lauren lay on her bed having negative ruminations about the family's new life in New Zealand. Her mind started to ponder harming her children, although these thoughts were vague and not as descriptive as those prior.
"I was feeling so out of control, trying to figure in my head how to get back to South Africa. My thoughts were so disorganised. I wanted to hold my kids and push them back inside me," she said.
"Everything's unravelling. I didn't want to hurt my children, I wanted them to be with me. I wanted this uncertainty to go away. [I'm] feeling I've made a huge mistake, impossible to extricate from. I felt hopeless and helpless."
But later that day, when the children were getting ready for bed, Lauren's thoughts of harming her children were actioned.
As the children got more boisterous that evening the tension inside Lauren built.
"I felt like I was going to explode… I felt all the hard work I put in with the kids was unravelling. I didn't bring them up to jump on the furniture and be nasty and rude. Everything failing."
She didn't tell Graham of these thoughts.
"I remember him walking out and he didn't say goodbye to the kids. I saw him to the door. I touched his arm. I felt like it became a dream and I was touching him for the last time. I saw myself outside of my body."
Lauren denied to Metoui she had already made the decision to kill her children by that time.
Later that evening, Lauren walked down her hallway and saw her children's lunchboxes, reminding her she still had to make their sandwiches but had no energy left.
"It was at that point that I decided that I was going to something," she said.
"I decided I'm going to end everything. I really wanted to die and take them with me. I didn't want to leave them without a mum, I loved them too much."
Lauren sobbed in court as Metoui recalled how she killed her children. Some of the horrific details about the alleged offending in the psychologist's report have been suppressed on an interim basis.
Shaking and covered in sweat, Lauren put her dead children into their beds and pulled up the covers.
"Because I love them, I wanted to tuck them in one last time."
She then attempted suicide.
"It was meant to be a happy ending for everyone but it's not a happy ending."
The trial continues before Justice Cameron Mander.
Where to find help and support:
- Shine (domestic violence) - 0508 744 633
- Women's Refuge - 0800 733 843 (0800 REFUGE)
- Need to Talk? - Call or text 1737
- What's Up - 0800 WHATS UP (0800 942 8787)
- Lifeline - 0800 543 354
- Youthline - 0800 376 633, text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz or online chat
- Samaritans - 0800 726 666
- Depression Helpline - 0800 111 757
- Suicide Crisis Helpline - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
- Shakti Community Council - 0800 742 584
