Australia mushroom trial live: Erin Patterson ‘not on trial for being a liar’, defence tells jury in closing address | Australia news
Key events
Mandy says despite Erin and Simon Patterson’s disagreement in late 2022 there was “no venom” in the pair’s relationship.
He says his client also had a good relationship with Don and Gail.
Mandy says Don and Gail were happy to go to Erin’s house in June and in July for the fateful meal.
“The fact is, there’s just simply no evidence that contradicts the position we’re putting to you,” he says.
He says Patterson had a history of low self-esteem and binge eating. During evidence, Patterson said she had been planning to have gastric bypass surgery for weight loss at the time of the lunch.
During cross-examination, Patterson told prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC she was also considering liposuction.
He says the Enrich clinic, which Patterson named in her evidence, definitely offered liposuction at that time.
Defence says Facebook messages ‘a distraction from the real evidence’
Colin Mandy SC says the whole world is now scrutinising these messages, which his client has expressed shame over.
We suggest these messages are a distraction from the real evidence in the case, the evidence that is relevant to these charges.
Mandy says the prosecution is not alleging a motive, yet has dedicated a lot of time in the trial to these Facebook messages.
“Because it was such a polite, kind and good relationship that these messages stand out,” he says.
It’s just an attempt … to undermine the evidence that Erin had a loving and supporting relationship with Don and Gail.
Erin Patterson’s defence says prosecution’s interpretation of Facebook group chats was ‘completely lacking nuance’
Mandy says there were 600 pages of messages from a Facebook group chat Patterson was in. But he says the prosecution only tendered six pages in the trial.
The court previously was shown messages from the group where Patterson said her in-laws, Don and Gail, were a “lost cause” in December 2022.
Mandy says it was a “private conversation” and an “emotional release”.
The prosecution’s theory about these messages “does not grapple with the nature of human behaviour”, Mandy says.
“It’s completely lacking nuance,” he says.
Mandy says the prosecution is asking the jury to “rely on three days of upset by Erin” and ignore her years-long relationship with Simon and his parents.
He says some of Patterson’s messages are “responsive” to questions by other group members who asked for updates.
Mandy says jurors will understand someone being polite to their grandmother and “swearing like a trooper with your mates”.
“Or maybe the other way round if you’ve got a cool grandmother and really nerdy mates,” he says.
Erin Patterson’s defence says her disagreement with Simon over child support and school fees a ‘minor thing’
Mandy recalls the evidence about Erin and Simon Patterson’s disagreement about child support payments and school fees in late 2022.
Regarding child support, Mandy says Erin was now eligible for an entitlement she hadn’t received before.
“It wasn’t a change for her,” he says.
Mandy says a “fair reading” of messages from the group chat with Erin, Simon and his parents from December 2022 suggests things became “petty” at this point.
He says the disagreement was a “minor thing”. But he says the correspondence stands out because it is the only disagreement between Erin Patterson and her in-laws in the evidence.
“These people are eternally polite to each other,” Mandy says.
The Pattersons are always polite in their exchanges, so when Erin is being honest about how she is feeling, that might have been a little bit confronting for them. It wasn’t rude. It wasn’t aggressive. She was standing up for herself and being direct.
Mandy says the prosecution argued Patterson lived a “duplicitous” life by portraying one side of herself to Simon and his family and another to her online friends.
“It should be obvious to you … when she’s upset about something, she raises it with the people she’s upset with … she’s not secret,” he says.
She’s not hiding it, she’s not pretending that everything is OK. She’s expressing it.
Mandy says there is no evidence Erin had been complaining about the Pattersons for years.
Defence says Erin Patterson made ‘first move to apologise’ after argument over late invitation to Gail’s 70th
Mandy takes the jury to evidence of message exchanges in October 2022 when Patterson received a late invitation to Gail’s 70th birthday party.
He reads Erin’s message to Simon in which she apologised for shouting at him.
“She’s making the first move to apologise,” Mandy says.
In Simon’s reply, he also apologised and said he wouldn’t call what either of them did shouting.
Mandy says this is not how a cold-blooded person would behave. He reminds the jury that it was a misunderstanding as Don and Gail had intended to invite Erin.
Defence says there is ‘not one scrap of evidence’ Erin Patterson saw iNaturalist death cap posts
Mandy says the jury has heard there had only been three reported sightings of death cap mushrooms in the Gippsland region.
The two confirmed sightings were by mycologist Dr Thomas May and retired pharmacist Christine McKenzie in the months prior to the lunch, the court hears.
He says these two sightings relied on people “who were very familiar with death cap mushrooms”.
Mandy says the crown’s case is that Patterson acted on the only two confirmed reported sightings of death cap mushrooms in South Gippsland.
“There’s not one scrap of evidence she actually saw those posts [on iNaturalist],” he says.
Mandy says there is also no evidence that Patterson returned to the iNaturalist website after May 2022.
Defence says Erin Patterson’s online searches about death cap mushrooms were ‘idle curiosity’
Colin Mandy SC says there is “no way” the prosecution can “rebut” Patterson’s evidence that she had a habit of foraging for mushrooms in the three years prior to the lunch.
He reminds the jury that the onus of proof is on the prosecution.
Touching on the evidence about the online searches for death cap mushrooms, Mandy says there are a number of possibilities.
Mandy says one possibility is that Patterson was not familiar with the citizen science website iNaturalist.
He says the online search records “jump around a bit”.
He says the searches show webpages related to death cap mushrooms were only visited for a few seconds.
“The timing of these records should tell you something very important … this interaction was idle curiosity, just before ordering dinner, three minutes before ordering dinner,” he says.
The interaction with iNaturalist was two minutes at most … it’s not very long.
This was not a person carefully studying this information, doing research about it. This was not a deep and abiding interest in this subject matter. It was passing attention.
Defence says ‘there is little doubt’ Erin Patterson looked up whether death cap mushrooms grow in Gippsland
Mandy says Erin Patterson’s online friend Jenny Hay testified that his client told their group chat about her love of mushrooms.
He says picking mushrooms was not something Patterson did daily.
“It could only happen in mushroom season … and it only happened a handful of times in each of these seasons,” he says.
It makes perfect sense … in the context of this dawning interest in mushrooms … that she would have become aware of death cap mushrooms.
It seems likely that people picking and eating death cap mushrooms would become aware of them … they are notorious.
People would know about that.
Mandy says the “question occurred to her” about whether death caps grow in Gippsland.
“So on 28 May 2022 there is little doubt it was Erin Patterson looking up that very question on the Cooler Master computer,” he says.
There’s no argument from us [that] it was someone else.
Erin Patterson’s defence says her interest in mushroom foraging was ‘not fabricated’
Colin Mandy SC turns to talk about mushrooms.
He says shortly after the Covid lockdowns began, Patterson became interested in mushrooms. He says Patterson’s evidence and photos of wild mushrooms found on an SD card seized from Patterson’s house show this.
“It’s not made up. It’s not fabricated,” he says.
He says a lot of people became interested in foraging during Covid because they were only able to go outside for walks.
Mandy says a theme of the prosecution’s questioning of Patterson has been whether other people knew about her interest in foraging.
He says some of these photos from April and May 2020 show Patterson’s children with her in the background while on a walk on the Leongatha rail trail.
“This is evidence and confirmation that Erin Patterson had an interest in mushrooms at exactly the same time [mycologist] Thomas May says this interest in mushrooms was becoming more popular,” he says.
Mandy reminds the jury that Patterson’s son recalled going for a walk with his mother in the Korumburra botanic gardens and her stopping to take a photograph of a mushroom.
Patterson’s daughter told police she had not been foraging with her mother, the court heard previously.
Mandy says it’s possible Paterson’s children could not recall their mother picking mushrooms on walks years later when questioned by police.
“Maybe it wasn’t a big deal,” he says.
Don and Gail Patterson an important part of Erin’s support network, defence says
Mandy says his client is a loving mother to her children.
Patterson told the jury when Don and Gail visited her and Simon in Western Australia they provided support when the couple’s first child was born, the court hears.
The jury has heard evidence that Patterson wanted to move back to Victoria so the family could be closer to Simon’s parents for support, Mandy says.
He points to Simon’s evidence that Don and Gail were an important part of Patterson’s support network. He points to Simon testifying that Patterson was particularly close to Don as they shared an interest in books and the world.
He says Patterson and Simon separated about seven years before the lunch.
“If there were the occasional disagreements … they were resolved really smoothly and respectfully,” he says.
That’s a significant thing for people who are separated.
It says a lot about the relationship.
He reminds the jury that there were no lawyers involved in Erin and Simon Patterson’s separation in 2015.
Mandy says the jury should remember the pair’s “spat” in December over child support payments was in the context of more than seven years of a relationship post-separation.
Erin Patterson ‘not on trial for being a liar’, defence says
Mandy says the jury must engage their heads and not their heart to intellectually examine the evidence.
“It doesn’t matter what you would have done in a situation,” he says.
Mandy says it is impossible for jurors to know how they would behave in a situation.
Mandy says Patterson has acknowledged she made lies.
“She’s not on trial for being a liar,” he says.
He says nothing Patterson did afterwards changes what her intention was when she served the beef wellington meal.
Erin Patterson’s defence says prosecution case based on ‘hindsight reasoning’
Colin Mandy SC says the prosecution has invited the jury to “think about what you would do in the situation if this was really a horrible accident”.
Mandy says the prosecution was inviting the jury to engage in an activity that could be seductive but is flawed because it is based on hindsight.
“What hindsight reasoning does, in a way, is to shift the burden of proof on to the defence,” he says.
“It’s the prosecution’s job to prove what the accused actually did and not to engage in a hypothetical comparison of what you or someone else might do in the same situation.”
Mandy says the prosecution should be relying on the evidence.
He says when you know the outcome of a situation and reflect on it “things might become clear”.
Things seem obvious in retrospect but that’s not the right way of approaching it.
Jury has entered court
The jurors have entered the court room in Morwell.
Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, is continuing to deliver his closing address to the jury.
What the jury heard on Tuesday
Here’s a recap of what the jury heard yesterday:
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Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC told the jury Erin Patterson “targeted her search” for death cap mushrooms to poison the beef wellingtons she served her lunch guests on 29 July 2023.
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Patterson cannot be accepted as a truthful and trustworthy witness, Rogers said. In the final moments of her closing address, she said if the jury combines all the evidence in the trial they will be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the beef wellingtons she served her guests.
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Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, said the prosecution had a “flawed approach” in analysing the evidence and “discarded inconvenient truths”. He told the jury to consider whether there is a reasonable possibility that death cap mushrooms were put into the beef wellingtons accidentally. He said jurors should also consider whether there is a reasonable possibility that Patterson did not intend to kill or cause serious injury to her guests.
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Mandy said his client had no motive and “very good reasons” not to harm her lunch guests. “If you do embark on this plan … you’ll lose the only people in the world who are any support to you and your children, you will lose your children and you will lose everything that’s important to you,” he said.
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Mandy said that while Patterson had a right to silence and was under no obligation to testify in the trial, she chose to give evidence in the trial. In doing so, he said, she opened herself up to days of cross-examination by an experienced barrister and the “scrutiny of the whole world”.
Good morning
Welcome to day 34 of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial.
Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, will continue delivering his closing address when the trial resumes from 10.30am.
Justice Christopher Beale has told the jury he will begin instructing them on Monday, before their deliberations. He said this “could spill” into next Wednesday. Once this is concluded, the jurors will retire to consider their verdicts.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha, in regional Victoria, on 29 July 2023.
She is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and her estranged husband’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The attempted murder charge relates to Heather’s husband, Ian.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with “murderous intent” but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragic accident.
