The court heard Akon Guode withdrew from the community following death threats and gossip before the accident.
It was a packed courtroom as family and members of Melbourne's Sudanese community attended Akon Guode's committal hearing.
She's accused of drowning three of her children by deliberately driving her car into a Wyndham Vale lake in April last year.
One year old Bol and four year old twins Hanger and Madit died... their six year old sister survived. Ms Guode claims she suffered a dizzy spell before the car veered into the lake.
Ms Guode's lawyer, Julian McMahon, raised questions about Akon's state of mind around the time of the incident.
Shortly after the birth of her son Bol, she'd told relatives she was constantly feeling unwell, often complaining of headaches and dizzy spells.
During her evidence, her aunty Abuk Kon said Ms Guode had told her she’d once had difficulty driving home.
Ms Guode is a single mother of seven. The Dinka woman lost her husband to war in South Sudan. Three of her children were born there, and once in Melbourne, she had four children with Joseph Manyang, the cousin of her deceased husband.
Mr Manyang is married to another woman, and the court heard this caused Ms Guode to be the subject of gossip.
Her eldest daughter, Akoi Chabiet gave evidence via video link that Mr Manyang's wife threatened Ms Guode after the twins were born.
"She would just call randomly and start yelling at my mum and saying horribly stuff to her."
Miss Chabiet also said the woman came to their home, "she was banging, she was yelling, she was saying that she was going to burn down the house and she was going to kill my mother."
The threats left her mother frightened, and it was around that time, when Miss Chabiet noticed her mother withdrew from the Sudanese community and stopped going out.
She said Ms Guode was a loving mother and was looking forward to a planned move to the Victorian town of Morwell, to live with her aunty.
The father of the deceased children, Joseph Manyang, is also expected to give evidence.
