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Lauren Dickason, the South African woman who was found guilty of killing her three young children weeks after they emigrated to New Zealand has been sentenced to 18 years in a psychiatric facility.
Dickason was sentenced to to an effective 18 years of incarceration in a mental healthcare facility after she was found guilty of murdering her daughters – six-year-old Lianè, and two-year-old twins, Maya and Karla.
She has been in Hillmorton Hospital since her arrest and will serve her sentence at a mental health unit instead of going to prison. However, News24 notes that prison hasn’t been completely ruled out.
New Zealand publication Stuff reported that Dickason could be moved to prison later and could become eligible for parole after six years.
Earlier, crown prosecutor Andrew McRae reportedly asked the court impose a sentence of life imprisonment and a minimum period of imprisonment of 17 to 18 years before Dickason could be eligible for parole. He reportedly described the murders as “brutal and callous”, and “unprecedented” in New Zealand.
The three girls were strangled to death on September 16, 2021, just weeks after the family emigrated. The 43-year-old, a medical doctor by profession, was found guilty by a New Zealand court in August 2023 after she pleaded not guilty to charges of murder by reason of insanity.
The prosecution argued that Lauren acted out of anger the night she killed her children and that she snapped due to built-up frustration. However, the defence said that Lauren was mentally unwell and did not recover from post-partum depression after the birth of her children. This was exacerbated by the family’s relocation to New Zealand, events of civil unrest in South Africa, COVID-19 lockdowns and Dickason going off her medication.
Justice Cameron Mander ruled that life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years or more “would be manifestly unjust” and so handed down three sentences of 18 years, which are to be served concurrently.
Stuff reported that Mander said he believed Dickason’s actions were the product of her mental disorder and that she was a loving mother.
Mander said the defence claimed that Dickason was “so severely unwell that she was removed from reality … that she could no longer appreciate what she was doing was morally wrong”.
Her husband Graham Dickason was out for dinner with colleagues at the time of the frightening murder, and during the sentencing on Wednesday, he reportedly said he had forgiven his wife for what she had done.
According to Stuff, Dickason said no apology would ever be enough.
“I want people to know our girls brought me so much joy and were the centre of my world. I am horrified by my actions, and the pain, distress and trauma I have caused everyone who loved them. Like many others, I miss them every single day,” she was quoted as saying.
Dickason’s father pleaded with the judge to be lenient in the sentencing, saying she had “been punished enough already” and had “lost everything.”