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‘No question’ Lauren Dickason loved the children she killed, husband tells court
Warning: This story contains distressing content.
The father of the three girls killed by Lauren Dickason has told the court he was wrong to describe his wife as “not a nurturing mother”, and she absolutely loved her children.
Orthopaedic surgeon Dr Graham Dickason faced cross-examination by his wife’s legal team on Wednesday via audiovisual link from South Africa.
The defence suggested the husband did not fully appreciate the gravity of his wife’s mental health struggles during a harrowing third day in the Christchurch High Court.
Lauren Dickason, 42, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her two-year-old twin daughters Karla and Maya and their older sister Liane at their Timaru home on 16 September 2021. Her defence will be built on arguments of insanity and infanticide.
Her legal team immediately acknowledged her husband’s grief and having to relive tragedy in court. Defence lawyer Anne Toohey said they were not assigning blame.
“I want to start by acknowledging your loss … and how difficult evidence has been for you yesterday, and might be today. Just to be clear before I ask questions for you today, it is not the defence case that you are to blame in any respect for what happened.”
But the defence believed Lauren Dickason was not to blame either, arguing she was suffering a mental disorder at the time her three daughters were killed in September 2021.
Speaking from South Africa, Dr Dickason faced cross examination for the first time in the trial.
The defence touched on the couple’s painful endeavour to start a family, underlined by a lengthy IVF journey.
“There was a bit of concern when we started realising that we are not able to conceive naturally… there were emotions around that,” Dr Dickason said.
Toohey asked him about how losing a baby in 2013 took a toll on his wife.
“After losing Sarah, Lauren cried every single day for two months. But she was very sad and distressed to lose Sarah.”
The court on Tuesday saw footage of Dr Dickason’s 2021 police interview, in which he said his wife was not a nurturing mother. The defence asked him whether he meant the comments.
Photo: Supplied
“In that interview you told police that Lauren was not a nurturing mother. Was that something that you said in the worst of circumstances that perhaps isn’t correct?”
He conceded it was a confusing moment during the worst night of his life.
“As you say, that was a very confusing moment in my life. And when I think back about making that statement, I was probably referring to the most recent times before our emigration – but not Lauren as a whole and our parenting together.”
Asked if there was any question whether she loved her daughters, he responded, “No question in my mind at all”.
Text messages from April 2021 that Graham Dickason sent to his wife, praising her and describing her as “a wonderful mother”, were also shared with the court.
Looking up at her husband, the 42-year-old woman appeared emotional as he emphasised his wife’s devotion to her girls.
The court heard how Lauren Dickason was diagnosed with postpartum depression in 2015. She told her husband in 2019 she had thoughts of hurting their children.
Toohey asked whether Dr Dickason fully appreciated the extent of his wife’s mental struggles.
“Lauren crying, struggling with insomnia, talked about her thinking about suicide and verbalising that to you, thinking about harming the children. Is it possible that your assessment in terms of how bad this depression was, in terms of what you’ve told the police and what you’ve told psychiatrists, again, is a subjective assessment?”
Dr Dickason told the court as first-time parents, tiredness and frustrations were factors. He admitted although he could not diagnose it, he did not deny she was struggling mentally as a parent. But he felt there were no signs that she was a risk to her children.
The trial continues in the High Court on Thursday.
RNZ
The chief executive of the Parliamentary Service is confident there will be enough room to accommodate the increased number of MPs and their staff coming into Parliament.
On current numbers, up to 131 MPs could be sitting in the Chamber following the election, brought on by a record overhang result.
Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson told the Spinoff that currently the debating chamber had enough chairs to seat 124 MPs – including the Speaker of the House – and work was being done to accommodate more by altering the seating arrangement.
In a statement, Parliamentary Service chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said planning for a larger Parliament had been going for “some time”.
“Now that the election results have confirmed an increase to the number of members we are looking at several options.
“We are confident we will be able to accommodate all members within the Chamber.”
VNP / Phil Smith
Gonzalez-Montero said office accommodation for members and their staff would be “stretched” for a short time, but the new Members’ Building was only a few months away from “practical completion”.
That building – located behind Parliament – was due to be ready to occupy in April next year and had capacity to accommodate around 30 backbench MPs.
“All members should be in fit-for-purpose accommodation from that point,” Gonzalez-Montero said.
Following the 2023 election, 123 MPs sat in the Chamber – a record number at the time. That decreased to 122 following the resignation of National MP Judith Collins.
Collins held the seat of Papakura and stepped down in May and Parliament voted against holding a by-election because it was too close to the election.
The election result also meant high-ranking National Party MPs like Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith, Nicola Willis and Gerry Brownlee – Speaker of the House and an MP for 30 years – would likely not make it back into Parliament.
Only resigning or retiring MPs were permitted to give a valedictory speech meaning none of them would get the chance to give a valedictory statement.
Asked if their would be special allowances for valedictories, Wilson said in a statement that normally only MPs were allowed to speak in the House but the House could suspend its own rules or temporarily alter them.
“It could do so to allow former members to address the House.”
Wilson said no such arrangements could be made until the next Parliament opened and members sworn in.
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