THE HEARTACHE AND THE HORROR

Devastating details are emerging from Lauren Dickason's trial where she faces charges of murdering her three little girls

- MEGHAN LAWRENCE AND NICOLA WHITFIELD

THE woman who appears in the dock day after day looks different to the one who smiled from a series of family photographs just two years ago.

Her once-blonde hair is now brown and lank, the muscles in her face tense, her mouth downturned. It's this face that's appearing on the front pages of newspapers in New Zealand and in new bulletins and sites around the world every day.

Two years ago, no one outside her group of family, friends, colleagues and the various people who played a part in her children's lives knew the name Lauren Dickason.

But now, as the tragic and shocking events of 16 September 2021 play out in the high court* in Christchurch, New Zealand, her name and face have become commonplace.

At the heart of it is a woman with many problems.

She'd endured 17 rounds of IVF in her struggle to become a mother. She'd lost her first baby, Sarah, in a traumatic miscarriage at 18 weeks.

She struggled with depression, had dark thoughts, sometimes resented her children and found them hard to control.

She stopped taking her medication to avoid compromising their acceptance to New Zealand when she and her husband, Graham Dickason, applied to emigrate to the country.

She also battled with the upheaval of emigration.

And, just a few weeks after the family arrived in their new hometown of Timaru, she killed her three little girls, Liané (6) and two-year-old twins Karla and Maya.

Now the jury has the task of deciding what exactly led to that terrible day in September 2021.

THE TERRIBLE DISCOVERY

Orthopaedic surgeon Graham, testifying via video link from Pretoria where he now lives, said he and Lauren had taken their children to school and kindergarten in separate cars on the morning of 16 September.

Lauren, who's also a medical doctor, was being a stay-at-home mom to help the kids settle into their new lives.