Lauren Anne Dickason is on trial charged with murdering her three children. Photo: Pool / NZME / George Heard
Warning: This story contains distressing content
The Crown's key clinical witness in the Lauren Dickason murder trial admits he overlooked adding the mother's thoughts of harming the children into his report.
It followed earlier assertions to the jury that the alleged murderer Lauren Dickason did not have an insanity, nor an infanticide defence based on the evidence he had seen.
Dickason is defending three murder charges following the deaths of her daughters, Maya, Karla and Liané at their Timaru home on 16 September 2021. Her legal representatives are advancing the view that the 42-year-old was insane at the time she killed her children, as part of an infanticide defence.
The trial entered a twelfth day in the Christchurch High Court with the Crown's psychiatric expert contributing a formal opinion on the matter facing the jury.
Dr Erik Monasterio, consultant in forensic psychiatry, took to the witness stand again on Tuesday in front of Justice Cameron Mander after beginning his testimony yesterday. Monasterio assessed Dickason after the killings, in a series of four interviews in 2021 and 2022.
He later faced cross-examination by the defence where the dependability of his reporting was targeted by Dickason's lawyer Anne Toohey.
Monasterio was grilled as to why he did not discuss claims of "violent ideations" Dickason had of harming the children with her in October 2021, after learning of this during an interview with her husband Graham Dickason three days prior.
"You didn't discuss it with her did you," Toohey asked.
"No it's not in my report, I wouldn't have discussed it with her, no," Dr Monasterio replied.
"You wouldn't have discussed it with her?" Toohey probed.
"If it's not in my report, I wouldn't have."
"But you accept you should've?"
"Yes I should have."
Monasterio was also challenged on his analysis and how much weight he gave to Dickason's reproduction history.
"You reject any possibility that Mrs Dickason had postpartum depression?" Toohey asked.
He denied this was the case.
Earlier, Monasterio told the court he believed there was no evidence that Dickason was incapable of knowing the "moral wrongfulness" when she killed her children.
"There is no evidence that the defendant suffered from any symptoms of psychosis, in particular delusional preoccupations," he said.
"Therefore, in my opinion the defendant does not have an insanity defence."
He added there was no argument for infanticide.
"I agree there is a significant depression, but I disagree, on the basis of all of the evidence before me, placed on the balance of probability, that this can be attributed to the effects of childbirth.
"How could it be... it was there already, a decade and a half before achieving pregnancy."
Monasterio told the jury that due to the "inconsistency of reporting" and "contradiction of information", connecting a clear motive for the killings to Dickason's mental disorder was "impossible".
"There is inconsistency in the defendant's accounts of the reasons that led her to perpetrate the alleged offences.
"In the police evidential interview, the defendant reported mounting severe stress, marked behaviour disturbance in her children, in particular the twins, the children's behaviour and the impact on her relationship with Graham, led her to feel overwhelmed and culminated in the alleged offences."
The trial resumes on Wednesday.
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