LAUREN DICKASON APPEALING CONVICTION
South African child murderer Lauren Dickason is appealing her convictions. The doctor was sentenced to 18 years in June for the murder of her three children in 2021.
She strangled and smothered her then 6-year-old and 2-year-old twin daughters at home in the New Zealand town of Timaru. Her husband Graham, an orthopaedic surgeon, was out for dinner with hospital colleagues.
At the time, her lawyers argued that the stress of moving to another country was the reason she was depressed and that her actions on the night of the murders were “a reaction to the anger and frustration at her children’s misbehaviour”.
Even though she pleaded not guilty to the charges, she was found guilty in 2023. Instead of being sentenced to jail, the judge ruled that Lauren should serve her sentence at a mental health unit in Hillmorton Hospital.
News24 reports that Lauren could be moved to a jail later. She would be detained in a hospital as a special patient, and it would be for the medical authorities to determine when she could be transferred to jail.
She will be eligible for parole in six years.
Soon after the incident, her husband returned to South Africa and attended her court case virtually.
Image credit: NZ Herald