"She met the test for insanity."
That's the finding of Dr Justin Barry-Walsh, a forensic psychiatrist giving evidence for the defence in the Lauren Dickason murder trial.
He interviewed the 42-year-old four times to come to that conclusion.
The mother admits killing her daughters, Liane, Maya and Karla in September 2021, but has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Her lawyers are arguing she has the defence of infanticide or insanity.
Two crown expert witnesses have told the court that Dickason doesn't quality for either defence, but Barry-Walsh is the second defence expert whose evidence supports the theory that Dickason was not in her right mind at the time of the alleged offending.
He told the jury: "Any person that thinks that their children are better off dead in context of a depression, which is the history I'd got after the first assessment of Ms Dickason, could be thought to have so departed from reality that you could call that a delusion."
He considered there was a psychotic component to her depressive illness.
"I was satisfied, whether or not it was felt those things were evidence of delusions, that she met the test for insanity."
He asked himself: "What could push someone who so clearly loved her children, never acted violently, to do such an extraordinary and extreme thing?"
Psychiatrist Dr Simone McLeavey, who was on the witness stand on Monday, told the jury that it was not an altruistic act, because of the love she had for her children.
Instead, she believed Dickason killed the children out of a need for control and anger, with a selfish motive to prevent them from having another mother.
But today Barry-Walsh said: "We've heard discussion of anger, I really don't think that gets close, there's really not enough evidence of the kind of extraordinary level of anger that would be required to act in such a way."
"It's not like she lashed out and struck one person. She, in an appallingly methodical way, killed all three. I think you take a step back, what makes sense is this woman was depressed, and she was getting more depressed... and as she got more depressed, she got to a position where she could see not point going on.
"She also decided that her children were better off dead, and it was that appalling inextricable logic that drove her to commit this act. In other words what I'm saying is it's my view most likely, that as a result of her depression and the worsening of that depression she acted in the way she did."
'Still ambivalent about whether she'd done the right thing'
Barry-Walsh believed, because of her depression, she wasn't capable of understanding her actions were wrong.
"She was unable to reason as to the moral wrongfulness of her actions with a reasonable degree of sense and composure, and beyond that would seem to have considered her actions morally correct."
He suggested that's still the case even to this day.
When he asked her about it this year, he said: "She's still was ambivalent about whether she'd done the right thing or not. In other words, even now she's seemingly describing persistence in a distorted view of the morality of those actions."
"The weight of evidence is sufficient to sustain within the balance of probabilities the defence that Ms Dickason was not guilty by reason of insanity."
Persisting post-natal depression symptoms
Dickason had only just moved to New Zealand from South Africa at the time of the alleged offending.
The family had arrived in Timaru that week, after their fortnight in managed isolation ended on September 11.
Barry-Walsh told the jury that the defendant's treatment before shifting, "wasn't as good as it should have been, in my view".
"She'd started off by self prescribing anti-depressants which is never a good idea."
He said medication is just one approach.
"Psychological therapies would be another obvious one... that's a good approach for an intelligent, motivated woman, like Ms Dickason," the expert told the court.
He pointed out how she had stopped her medication in early 2021, without consultation.
Barry-Walsh said: "I don't think that was a good idea."
The forensic psychiatrist conceded there was a possibility she had recovered from post-natal depression, sometime before the killings.
"I think there are pros and cons to this, there is evidence that does go both ways."
Two crown experts have told the jury Dickason did have a period of recovery.
But Barry-Walsh said: "She more likely than not, probably even, had not fully recovered as I understand that term. As I've already said, this is not an easy task, there has to be some uncertainty about this."
He pointed to "persisting symptoms, that were those of her post natal depression".
"Although she was starting to feel better over this time, she still had underlying sadness... still had problems as a parent."
He said: "When you put that all together, and if I ask myself the question, 'If I saw this woman at that time, say at March or April 2021, what would I have thought about her need for further treatment?' I would have likely said, 'look you're getting better, there are still issues from your post natal depression, you still need more treatment'."
He also told the jury that if he'd seen Dickason on the morning before the alleged offending, when her depression had further worsened, he would have admitted her.
"If she'd declined treatment I would have thought she'd readily met the criteria for compulsory treatment under the Mental Health Act."
By Laura James and Lisa Davies
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