Triple murder accused meets criteria for insanity defence, says new pysch expert.
The Dickason family, Graham and Lauren, 6-year-old Liané, and the 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla, with nanny Mendy Sibanyoni at the twins' christening in 2019.Lauren Dickason was in the grips of such a deep depression that she was not only overwhelmed by viewing the world through an obsessively negative lens, she believed killing the children was morally correct at the time.
During the trial in a Christchurch court, the prosecution has alleged the former Pretoria doctor was driven by anger and jealousy towards her children and acted with deliberate intent when she strangled and smothered them. Her lawyers are leading a defence of insanity and infanticide, calling witnesses to testify about her long-standing problems with her mental health, which worsened during the IVF treatment she needed to become pregnant, isolation of Covid-19 lockdowns and stress of emigration.
“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.”By this point, she told Barry-Walsh, “the numbness had worn off” and she was “missing my girls so much”. “Despite this, she described feeling terrible guilt, which began about five weeks after she was hospitalised, when the period of numbness began to wear off and feelings started to come back. She described tearfully the level of distress she feels with 'all the hurt I have caused'.”
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