WARNING: This story contains graphic and sensitive content.
The jury in Lauren Dickason’s triple murder trial has gone home for the night.
They have now been deliberating for nine-and-a-half hours and will continue tomorrow from 10am.
Today they had no questions relating to their task.
The eight women and four men - selected on July 17 for this trial - retired at 1.55pm yesterday after Justice Cameron Mander gave a lengthy summing up of the case against the accused - and her defence.
They must now decide on Dickason’s fate and have four final options:
If found guilty of murder Dickason faces life in a New Zealand prison.
If the jury reaches a verdict of infanticide she could be jailed for a maximum of three years.
If her defence of insanity is accepted Justice Mander would then have to consider making an order detaining her as a special patient at a psychiatric unit.
That order would be in place until the national director of mental health is satisfied she is mentally well enough for release.
Details of Justice Mander’s summary - including direction on how the jury should approach deliberations and what they should consider - are below.
The jury were sent to begin their formal decision-making process at 1.55pm and immediately requested to re-watch the video of Dickason’s police interview, conducted the day after the alleged murders.
The trial is now in its fifth week.
Dickason, 42, does not deny killing Liane, 6, and 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla in September 2021.
But she has pleaded not guilty to murder, claiming she was severely mentally disturbed at the time and did not know what she was doing was morally wrong - and that she should not be held criminally responsible.
He appreciated much of what he had to cover would be repetitive however he was “obliged to ensure” they understood the case against Dickason and her defence.
Mander reminded the it was up to them, and them alone, as to what evidence they accepted and rejected.
“At the end of the day your assessment of the evidence is for you,” he said.
“It is up to you as to how you assess it... it’s for you to judge.
‘You need to take into account the evidence as a whole... does it make sense, does it ring true?
“You must reach your decision without feelings of prejudice or sympathy… it is inevitable such feelings are engendered in a case involving three little children.
“You must set aside your emotions and go about your task dispassionately. You must judge the defendant without fear or favour - feelings of sympathy for the three children, Mrs Dickason, Mr Dickason and their families… must be put to one side.
“An entirely human response to three little girls being killed is outrage and horror - but you must put those reactions and feelings to one side in order to carry out your task in the analytical way that is required of you; to make sure your verdicts are based on the law and the evidence.”
Justice Mander said the jury must ignore any media reports or comments made to them by anyone outside their number about the case.
He said they must return verdicts based on their assessment of the evidence alone and urged them to “be on your guard” and not allow any irrelevant information or outside influence to colour their thinking.
“Mrs Dickason is innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
“It is for the Crown to prove the charge of murder and to negate the defence of infanticide… there is no onus on the defendant to prove or disprove insanity… or infanticide.
“You must be brought to the point that you can say ‘I am sure the defendant is guilty’... has the Crown proved beyond a responsible doubt that… the children’s deaths were not an act of infanticide.”
Justice Mander said there was no doubt Dickason killed the little girls and that she was very mentally unwell.
The jury must decide whether she was so disturbed that she cannot be held criminally culpable.
The jury’s verdict options were murder, the alternative charge or “partial defence” of infanticide or the full defence of insanity and Justice Mander spent much time talking them through each.
The Crown alleges Dickason murdered the children in a “calculated” way because she was frustrated, angry and resentful of them.
It acknowledges Dickason suffered from sometimes-serious depression, but maintains she knew what she was doing when she killed the girls.
Opening the Crown case on July 1, McRae alleged Dickason was an angry and frustrated woman who was “resentful of how the children stood in the way of her relationship with her husband” and killed them “methodically and purposefully, perhaps even clinically”.
The defence says Dickason was a severely mentally disturbed woman in the depths of postpartum depression and did not know the act of killing the children was morally wrong at the time of their deaths.
Further, it says she was “in such a dark place” she had decided to kill herself and felt “it was the right thing to do” to “take the girls with her”.
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