{"id":6488,"date":"2023-07-17T17:51:44","date_gmt":"2023-07-17T05:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=6488"},"modified":"2023-07-17T17:51:44","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T05:51:44","slug":"trial-of-mother-accused-of-murdering-her-three-daughters-begins-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=6488","title":{"rendered":"Trial of mother accused of murdering her three daughters begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The High Court trial of a woman accused of killing her three daughters at their Timaru home is underway in Christchurch.<\/p>\n<p>Lauren Anne Dickason is charged with murdering her 2-year-old twin daughters Karla and Maya, and their older sister Lian\u00e9, who was 6, on 16 September 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband Graham, an orthopaedic surgeon, found them dead when he arrived home about 10pm after dining with colleagues at a restaurant.<\/p>\n<p>The family had moved into a property in Timaru&#8217;s Queen Street only a week earlier, having arrived in New Zealand from South Africa a month before.<\/p>\n<p>Dickason has plead not guilty to the killings, with the defence to argue insanity and infanticide.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of witnesses will give evidence during the three-week trial in front of Justice Cameron Mander.<\/p>\n<p>Empanelling of the twelve person jury began in court on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Opening statements from Crown prosecutor Andrew McRae and Dickason&#8217;s defence lawyer Kerryn Beaton KC are expected to follow later in the day.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/rnz-ressh.cloudinary.com\/image\/upload\/s--YfOF_2Mb--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1644498631\/4M3XIJ3_copyright_image_275380\" alt=\"Woman charged with murder of three daughters. Graham &amp; Lauren Dickason and kids Liane 6 and twins Maya and Karla 2 Dickason\" width=\"1050\" height=\"590\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">Two-year-old twins Maya and Karla and their 6-year-old sister Lian\u00e9.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0Supplied<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>With her signed consent, Dickason&#8217;s lawyer entered pleas of not guilty to all three murder charges in October 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Beaton confirmed her client was to rely on an insanity and infanticide defence.<\/p>\n<p>Under New Zealand law, infanticide functions as both a stand-alone offence, and as a partial defence to murder or manslaughter.<\/p>\n<p>Graham Dickason was expected to be called to give evidence in the trial from Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The Crown was applying for him to give evidence from South Africa via audiovisual link, but this was opposed by the defence.<\/p>\n<p>Suppression orders remain in place on the details of the alleged crime.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The High Court trial of a woman accused of killing her three daughters at their Timaru home is underway in Christchurch. Lauren Anne Dickason is charged with murdering her 2-year-old twin daughters Karla and Maya, and their older sister Lian\u00e9, who was 6, on 16 September 2021. Her husband Graham, an orthopaedic surgeon, found them [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6490,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488\/revisions\/6490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}