The Crown is has delivered its closing arguments at the end of the fourth week of the Lauren Dickason murder trial, at the High Court in Christchurch.
Crown prosecutor Andrew McRae told the jury, “The issue is going to be whether her actions at the time she killed her children are partially excused by the fact that the balance of her mind was disturbed by the effects of childbirth, or a disorder consequent upon childbirth, so infanticide or whether she was insane".
Dickason admits she killed her girls and it's accepted that she was severely depressed at the time, but she denies she murdered Liane, Maya and Karla, using the defences of insanity and infanticide.
However “the Crown say she wasn't so unwell that she has a medical defence available to her”.
“Her actions are actually explained by two primary drivers, her anger at her children's behaviour, and her need for control. In that moment, that isolated moment, there was a loss of control in the context of the situation she found herself in.”
“Once she started doing what she was doing to the girls, there was no turning back."
He referred to how Dickason told one expert, "they would have known what I did".
The Crown disputes the defence case that she killed her children out of love, and that her motive was altruistic.
“The altruistic category being one that seemingly could only be done by a person who could not know her actions were morally wrong," McRae said.
"You need to determine what it was that drove this woman to do what she did.”
The Crown said Dickason’s comments, that she killed her daughter Karla first because she had been horrible to her, are proof she killed them out of anger.
“Indeed, as with what was said in her police interview, her action was very much done in a moment of anger."
The Crown says the ‘altruistic motive’ only arose after treatment at Hillmorton Hospital a month after the killings.
“Her account varies so much because of the treatment that essentially, [that] had been provided to her and her very natural desire, and we can all understand this, to rationalise this very terrible act."
McRae told the jury that of the five experts, “those that spoke with her at an early time were able to crystallise an account from her, that the Crown say is the account closest as possible to the truth".
“When you look at the account she gave to them critically and carefully, there is no true altruistic motive that was given to them."
He said the defence experts who submitted anger wasn't the motive "didn't look hard enough".
"They got caught accepting and not testing the account of Ms Dickason, which had been subject to the influence of her rationalising her acts in her head in treatment."
Post-partum depression - 'long gone'
McRae told the jury that any disturbance of the mother's mind as a result of childbirth "was long gone".
"There was clear evidence that Ms Dickason was living a meaningful and fulfilling life during this period."
He posed the question: "So what was it that caused the depressive episode that ultimately was still existing at the time of the 16th of September?"
"It's Covid, it's immigration stress, the stress of moving, the life situation in South Africa, living with the mother in law, the container problems they had in terms of moving their property away. And it's those stresses that caused a further bout of depression, they were the stressors in the context of her vulnerable personality, her perfectionist nature and her need to control everything that was around her. Those stressors were nothing to do with any distress caused by childbirth."
He suggested to the jury that "even if you think that the postpartum depression still existed in some sense, it was not a more than minimal cause".
The Crown believed the defendant knew exactly what she was doing, and the consequences of her actions.
"She knew she was killing the girls and she proceeded regardless."
He said after her children were dead "then she realised, what am I going to do, and took steps to commit suicide, those steps were haphazard".
McRae made the point "you may feel sorry for [Dickason] given everything that she's lost, you can acknowledge those feelings, but need to put them to one side".
Concluding, he said, "as hard as it might be, the only verdict available is one of guilty of murder for Liane Dickason, guilty of murder for Karla Dickason and guilty of murder for Maya Dickason".
Dickason's lawyers will now close the defence case.
SHARE ME