Day 2 of Erin Patterson’s appeal: Triple-murderer pushes for conviction to be overturned, Crown seeks no parole

On the second day of convicted triple-murderer Erin Patterson’s appeal, prosecutors have argued it would have been “pure speculation” for her defence to use photos of wild mushrooms to show she had an interest in cooking and eating them.

The 51-year-old mother of two sentenced to life in prison in September last year for the murders of Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, with a poisoned lunch in July 2023.

Patterson, who maintains she is innocent and the ill-fated lunch was a tragic accident, is appealing the jury’s guilty verdicts in the Court of Appeal.

She was handed a minimum term of 33 years, which the Director of Public Prosecutions will seek to overturn by arguing the sentence was “manifestly inadequate”.

Day one of Patterson’s appeal played out before a packed court of her victims’ families, media, police and public observers on Wednesday as her lawyers made the case seven issues during the trial made her conviction a miscarriage of justice.

These included the unwelcome discovery jurors were sequestered in the same Traralgon hotel as several members of the prosecution, evidence they argue should never have been put to the jury, and “unfair” tactics from the prosecution.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Brendan Kissane KC, and Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams began responding to these appeal grounds on Wednesday afternoon – but only addressed two of the seven – before the hearing wrapped up after 4pm.

Ground 3: Was the judge right to not allow mushroom photos?

The hearing resumed shortly after 10am on Thursday as Mr McWilliams began addressing the third ground of appeal – that trial judge Christopher Beale had made a mistake when refusing to allow photos of wild mushrooms found on an SD card at Patterson’s home from being shown to the jury.

On Wednesday, Veronika Drago, for Patterson, argued the photos, from 2020, were going to be used to show she had a history of foraging for wild mushrooms.

During Patterson’s trial, her lawyers put forward the suggestion Patterson was an avid forager and may have accidentally picked and included death cap mushrooms in the meal.

Ms Drago said the decision “forced” Patterson to give evidence during the trial that “compromised her right to silence”.

Mr McWilliams told the court the defence wanted to use the photos to show Patterson had a habit of picking, cooking and eating wild mushrooms.

While the evidence could show she had a tendency to pick mushrooms, Mr McWilliams said the judge was “entirely correct” to find it didn’t support the inference she cooked and ate wild mushrooms.

“One can’t accidentally include poisonous mushrooms in a dish if one doesn’t have a tendency to cook with wild mushroom,” he said.

“We say His Honour was entirely correct in making the findings he did and it was well open to His Honour not to be satisfied.

“His Honour was right to say to make that next leap would be pure speculation.”

The court was told Patterson had previously denied she ever foraged for wild mushrooms when interviewed before she was charged with murder.

“There remained throughout the Crown case no evidence that the applicant had previously held an innocent interest (in wild mushrooms),” he said.

The court was told Thursday afternoon had been set aside for both sides to argue on Patterson’s sentence.

The hearing is being livestreamed on the Supreme Court of Victoria website, with more than 1400 people tuning in on the first day.

Following an 11-week trial last year, jurors unanimously found Patterson murdered her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s parents and aunt by serving a beef wellington containing death cap mushrooms during a lunch on July 29, 2023.

Each fell critically ill following the meal – Don, Gail and Heather died in early August, while Mr Wilkinson slowly recovered after spending more than a month in hospital.