Chief Justice Anne Ferguson found Guode’s state of mind was disturbed when she drove into the lake, as a result of the traumatic birth of her youngest child, Bol. Guode underwent life-saving surgery after Bol's birth. Guode has already served three years in prison, meaning she could be released in just over a decade, although she faces being deported to her native South Sudan on her release. Guode pleaded guilty to two counts of murder, one of attempted murder and one of infanticide. Akon Guode's car in the lake. Credit:Pat Scala The charge of infanticide applies to women who kill their children who are younger than two when affected by mental-health problems related to childbirth. The infanticide charge relates to Bol’s death.

Guode’s lawyers have argued that her offending be viewed through the infanticide prism given she was a mother of seven in financial trouble whose mental health had declined since she lost a lot of blood during Bol’s birth. Loading Justice Ferguson said before Guode and her children came to Australia as refugees, she had lived an extraordinarily difficult life in South Sudan, having witnessed the murder of her husband before she was raped. In their reasons for reducing her sentence, the appeal judges found Guode "fatefully and irredeemably breached" her children's trust but also "her capacity to make calm and rational decisions was severely compromised by a mental condition which was not of her own making". At Guode's 2017 sentencing, Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry said the woman had survived being raped and the death of her soldier husband in war-torn Sudan before starting a new life in Australia.

Justice Lasry said much of the case remained a "tragic mystery", as Guode had not explained exactly why she killed her children. She initially claimed she had suffered a dizzy spell, the court heard, but neurological tests showed no problems. Justice Lasry said Guode had lived an "extraordinarily difficult life" and that cases such as hers tested the community's compassion, as people wanted to understand how parents could kill their children. Akon Guode at her children's funeral in April 2015. Credit:Chris Hopkins "In my opinion your actions were the product of extreme desperation rather than any form of vengeance of a kind that has arisen in other cases of people killing their children," he said.

Guode drove four laps of the lake before she did a U-turn, steered through the only entry point to the lake and accelerated into deeper water. She then got out but did nothing to help residents and emergency services workers who frantically tried to save the children. In their ruling, Court of Appeal Justices Ferguson, Phillip Priest and David Beach found that when Guode killed her children her functioning was impaired by a significant mood disorder, which prevented her from thinking clearly and making calm and rational decisions. Akon Guode is led into court before her sentencing last year Credit:Jason South "The uncontradicted psychiatric opinion is that [her] capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct at the time was impaired, and the intent of her behaviour was obscured," the judges said.

"Those factors holding sway, we consider [Guode's] moral culpability to be significantly reduced, so much rendering denunciation less important in the exercise of the sentencing discretion than would otherwise be the case, and affecting the punishment that might be considered just in all of the circumstances." The judges acknowledged three vulnerable children died, but said Guode's functioning was compromised and her situation "pitiable". They ruled the punishment Justice Lasry imposed was manifestly excessive. With AAP