To: High Court Judge Cameron Mander

We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned about the issue of Postpartum Depression (PPD) and its impact on women worldwide. PPD is a chronic, debilitating condition and  when left untreated, it can result in tragic consequences.  It is crucial for the legal profession to acknowledge PPD as an urgent public health issue that needs to be addressed. We urge you, High Court Judge Cameron Mander, to consider the complexities of PPD in your forthcoming sentencing of Lauren Dickason. It is our hope that you approach this case with wisdom, humanity, and compassion. PPD is a serious medical condition which is not only devastating to the individuals suffering from it but also for their families and communities. It is therefore essential that we recognize the urgent need to provide adequate support, understanding and resources to those affected by PPD. By acknowledging PPD in the legal profession, we can further encourage a shift in societal attitudes towards Maternal Mental Health. Sentencing decisions should take into account the challenges faced by individuals with PPD and the potential mitigating factors related to their condition.

On August 16, 2023 a New Zealand jury found Lauren Dickason guilty of murdering her three children. The family had just recently emigrated from South Africa. The jury rejected her defense of insanity and infanticide.

 Ruth Hill reporter at the news source RNZ Checkpoint wrote: 

Mark Huthwaite, a psychiatrist with decades of experience treating perinatal depression and anxiety says the adversarial legal system is not well equipped to deal with cases involving mental illness, like that of Lauren Dickason.

Dickason, a former GP, did not deny killing her daughters, six-year-old Liané and her 2-year-old twins Maya and Karla, at their Timaru home in September 2021, but pleaded not guilty to murder, saying she was severely ill with postpartum depression.

Huthwaite, who is also an Associate Professor at the University of Otago and works at the Regional Specialist Maternal Mental Health Service in Wellington, said lawyers needed "black and white definitions", but mental illness was all shades of grey.

"Unfortunately, in psychiatry, there are fewer definitive answers."

Psychosis could overlap with anxiety and depression and fixed beliefs that had no basis, he said.

"But in court, there's a defense and there's a prosecution, it's oppositional, it's adversarial.

"For me in this kind of process, one of the worst ingredients is adversity."

Other countries had different models for dealing with such cases, he noted.

In his native South Africa - also Lauren Dickason's homeland - a judge conducts the trial with the help of expert advisors.

As a young psychiatrist, Huthwaite was an expert advisor to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission into Apartheid, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

"We heard horrific things, absolutely the worst things humans can do to each other. Yet it was the collective that held us, that was the strength in it.

"And I would say in this process in court, for example, if we had used Māori tīkanga here, actually we would have started each session with a cleansing, a karakia, a holding and we would have finished each session like that.

"That was how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did it as well."

It did not really matter whether someone had religious beliefs or not, in his view.

"It's the drawing together and the 'holding in mind' that actually counts.

"In Zulu, the word for this is 'ubuntu' or 'the humanity of others', which is the kind of like the real meaning of aroha - which doesn't mean just 'love' the way we flip it around. It really means that deep ingrained sense of the respect and dignity of others. And for me, that should be at the core when we talk about this case, this tragedy."

'We don't normalise it enough'.

Huthwaite said the Dickason case had been emotionally triggering for some clients.

"I'm seeing the identification with it, in other words, 'My goodness, I could do that, it could have been me. What if I got to that point?' which is an incredibly frightening thought for anyone, let alone any prospective mother or mother of a newborn or someone who is struggling at the moment.

"The impact is significant."

Lauren Dickason was caught "in a perfect storm", he said.

She had reportedly stopped her antidepressants, only just arrived in a new place after 14 days in managed isolation with three small children on top of two years of pre-emigration stress in a country riven with civil unrest and power blackouts and a decade-long struggle with infertility.

"As an immigrant, you feel completely alone. I remember that feeling myself - you want to come, you think you're prepared, but you have left your place of safety (even if it's not actually safe) and everyone and everything you know. Then there was the MIQ system, which was inherently adversarial, and we know that people become acutely unwell in holding cells where they feel detached from the place they are.

"All this at a time when we were trying to be kind."

"If we could go back in time and prevent it, I would say to Te Whatu Ora, you are bringing in staff, where is your package of care? How are you holding these people in mind and building this into your system?"

Parenting was not meant to be done alone, and previous generations and other cultures understood this, he said.

"There was always 'an angel in the nursery' - a midwife, a friend, a neighbour - if a mother was struggling, you had all these people there to hold children and mother in mind and that's how people got through."

Recovery was certainly possible, even after years, he said.

"I recently saw a woman who was struggling with her 13-year-old, oppositional defiance etc. Then we found she actually had untreated post-natal depression and we worked on that, and it's transformed their relationship."

By signing this petition, we acknowledge the precarious plight of women who suffer from this illness and its presence as a public health crisis. We plead with Judge Mander to consider this in his sentencing of Lauren.