Australia mushroom trial live: defence in Erin Patterson's triple-murder trial to continue closing address
Update:
Date: 2025-06-18T00:40:24.000Z
Title: Jury has entered court
Content:
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.
Update:
Date: 2025-06-18T00:38:04.000Z
Title: What the jury heard on Tuesday
Content: Here's a recap of what the jury heard yesterday:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'.
Update:
Date: 2025-06-18T00:36:22.000Z
Title: Good morning
Content: 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.
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