A woman accused of murdering three of her children by driving into a lake was the subject of gossip, dealing with debt collectors and experiencing dizzy spells, a court has heard.
Daughter Akoi Chabiet, 19, has told a court that her mother Akon Guode was so unwell after the birth of her youngest sibling, Bol, that she helped feed, bath and put to bed the youngest four children.
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Lake tragedy mother was unwell
A court is told the mother accused of killing three of her children by driving into a lake in Wyndham Vale was the subject of gossip, dealing with debt collectors and experiencing dizzy spells.
But she denied that she was the children's primary carer.
Bol was 16 months old when Ms Guode, 36, drove her car into Lake Gladman on April 8, 2015, killing the baby and his twin four-year-old siblings Hanger and Madit.
The mother-of-seven, originally from South Sudan, has been charged with three counts of murder and the attempted murder of her six-year-old daughter Aluel, who survived the crash.
Giving evidence by videolink on the first day of a week-long committal mention in Melbourne, Ms Chabiet said her mother "wasn't well" after Bol's birth, a year and a half before the tragedy.
She had also earlier been threatened by the wife of the man who fathered her four youngest children, Ms Chabiet said, and described the woman hurling abuse at their house after the twins were born.
"She was banging, she was yelling, she was saying she was going to burn our house and she was going to kill my mother," Ms Chabiet said.
When asked if the community were gossiping about her mother, she said: "I just heard that my mum has taken someone else's husband.
"If my mum went to a social event they would look at her funny and people that used to talk to her wouldn't talk to her anymore."
Ms Guode had also become distant with her children for a time, Ms Chabiet said.
"She wasn't interacting with us as much," she said. "She would just be watching TV or staying in her room. She was just like sitting, like laying down."
Headaches and dizzy spells started about two months later for which her mother never sought medical help, Ms Chabiet said. "She got dizzy randomly, sometimes when she got the headaches," she said.
Ms Chabiet told teachers that she was worried about her mother. "To me she looked sick, she wasn't eating as much and she was just sleeping a lot," she said, but added that this bad spell only lasted "a couple of months".
Overdue bill notices and mail from debt collectors had also started to appear, she said.
When a teacher had asked if she believed her mother had depression, Ms Chabiet told the court she'd said: "I'm not sure because I don't know the symptoms."
Speaking through a translator earlier, Abook Kon, Ms Guode's aunt, denied she was suffering from depression.
"It's obvious when someone is clinically not well or emotionally not well," she said.
About a year before the tragedy, Ms Kon said her niece had collapsed from a headache and "thought she was dying."
"She was feeling very unwell, she felt dizzy," she said.
"She always said she had a constant headache, she'd feel dizzy, have to lie down," she said.
Ms Guode had been planning to move to Morwell where her aunt lived at the time of the tragedy.
Ms Chabiet had spoken on the phone to her mother before she went into the lake, she said.
The six-year-old girl had a medical appointment for her diabetes that day and Ms Guode planned to drop the other kids home before taking her.
"She just said she'd be back soon," Ms Chabiet said.
Asked if she got a sense something terrible was going to happen that day, she said "no, no."