Lauren Dickason sentenced to 18 years in mental facility
Lauren Dickason who murdered her three daughters in 2021, was sentenced today to 18 years in a mental health unit.
In 2021, Lauren Anne Dickason murdered her three daughters after the family moved to New Zealand. The court found her guilty of the three murders in 2023, but her sentencing was still pending. Today, the court sentenced Lauren Dickason to 18 years in a mental health unit.
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE EVENING OF THE MURDERS?
During the initial court appearance on three murder charges, the full details of how the South African mother killed her twin daughters Maya and Karla, 2, and their older sister Liané, 6, were revealed in the High Court in Christchurch.
The family relocated to New Zealand after Dickason’s husband, Graham was offered a position at Timaru Hospital. He is an orthopaedic surgeon.
The evening of the murders, Graham went out with colleagues. Dickason was alone with the children, according to an article published in The Press. Dickason claimed that the children were misbehaving. She then made up a game of necklaces, placing cable ties around the children’s necks. Crown prosecutor Andrew McRae informed the court that the children were asphyxiated but did not die.
Dickason then smothered them with blankets before attempting to take her own life, first with a knife and then with pills.
WHY A MENTAL FACILITY AND NOT PRISON?
Since being charged with the murders, Dickason has been under 24-hour supervision due to her risk of self-harm. Doctors diagnosed her with a major depressive disorder in her teens.
The New Zealand Herald reported that Justice Cameron Mander stated that a life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years or more would be manifestly unjust. This, after he considered all the material of the case and legal aspects.
Consequently, he sentenced Lauren Dickason her to three determinate sentences of 18 years, to be served concurrently at a mental health facility – Hillmorton Hospital.
He ordered Dickason to be detained at a mental health facility for compulsory treatment. She will remain there until she reaches a point that she is mentally stable enough to be transferred to prison.
Dickason will be eligible for parole after she serves a third of her sentence, i.e. six years.
When sentenced, Dickason remained silent and did not react.
At the health facility, healthcare workers will give her medication. She will also have access to mental health specialists. Dickason’s lawyer argued that a mental health unit was the appropriate place for her as she would not have access to the same level of care for her ‘complex’ mental needs in prison.