GARDEN TIME WITH HER GIRLS

As Lauren Dickason awaits trial for allegedly killing her three children, her SA friend tells YOU what her life is like in a New Zealand hospital

- MEGHAN LAWRENCE

THE garden at Hillmorton Hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand, was one of the casualties of the Covid-19 pandemic. It went to ruin as lockdowns were imposed and staff attended to more urgent matters.

But now it’s being restored to its former glory, one lush bed at a time. And the quiet woman slowly bringing it back to life seems to have found some solace between the foliage and the soil.

The woman who spends her days pottering in the garden is Lauren Dickason, the former South African doctor who’s been charged with the murders of her children, two-year-old twins Maya and Karla and their older sister Liané (6).

Lauren, husband Dr Graham Dickason, and their kids had emigrated from Pretoria to New Zealand in 2021 and weeks later came the shocking news she had allegedly killed her children.

Lauren has been at Hillmorton Hospital for psychiatric evaluation ever since and her trial has been postponed several times. Now, with it scheduled to start on a new date of 17 July, YOU chatted to one of her close friends.

Lauren isn’t the monster people on social media are making her out to be, Nina* says.

The Lauren she knows is a loving mom whose world centred around her children. “I knew Lauren very well,” Nina tells us. “She was a friend unlike any other. And she was a wonderful mom.”

Nina’s children were friends with the Dickason kids before the family left for the coastal town of Timaru and she describes Lauren as an attentive mother.

When it was time to pick them up from school or daycare, she’d drop everything, Nina says. A bottle of water and a snack would be waiting by their car seats even though it was just an eight-minute drive home.

The tragedy occurred in September 2021 and Nina has maintained contact with Lauren.