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The court hears that on 11 May 2022 the mobile seized from Patterson’s house connected to the Poowong Bay station between 17.25 to 6.29pm.
On the same day, Patterson messaged Simon at 5.49pm, the court hears.
The message reads:
Cool thanks. [our daughter] had a collision with another kid on the bbball court. Went down flat and hurt her knee. She came off crying and had a cuddle then ran back out two mins later. She’s a tough nut.
Simon replies at 10.02pm:
That’s cool. She is a tough nut and keen to play come hell or high water.
Erin replies at 10.04pm:
She’s good at dribbling while running down the court.
The jurors are then shown several Facebook messages sent by Erin to her online friends.
17 December 2022 Erin sends a Facebook message:
My phone screen is broken and it won’t respond to any commands or anything. Everything is on my phone, all my passwords are in my passwords vault and I was trying to log into it on my laptop and it was sending an authorisation email to my emails which I couldn’t access because I didn’t have my password which was inside my password vault.
On the same day Erin messages:
Anyway I’ve been googling everything trying to get into my phone and emails and just couldn’t but then something suggested I could do a hard reboot of my phone and restart it in safe mode...”
On 19 December 2022, Erin messages her online friends to say she has purchased a Samsung Galaxy A23 mobile phone.
The cheapest I could get while not being an absolute piece of 


phone …
Eppingstall says Patterson provided a Samsung Galaxy A23 to police after officers conducted a search of her Leongatha home on 5 August 2023.
He says the sim card in the phone was connected to a number ending in the digits “835”.
Eppingstall says searches on a database revealed the number was connected from 11 July 2023 – less than three weeks prior to the lunch.
He says the sim card was used in a tablet device until 3 August 2023 before it was put in a mobile phone and handed to police.
Eppingstall says the sim card was placed in a Samsung Galaxy A23 mobile phone.
This is the same mobile phone that the court previously heard had several factory resets performed on it, the jury is told.
Eppingstall says police also found a second mobile phone number attached to Patterson’s name. It ended in the digits “783”
Police found phone records dating back to 2019 for the phone, the court hears. The prosecution calls this “Phone A”.
The jury is then shown call charge records which Eppingstall says show the sim card is switched from “Phone A” into a different phone.
He says this was a Nokia mobile phone.
The records show it occurred at 1.45pm on 5 August 2023. Eppingstall says this was while police were searching Patterson’s house in Leongatha.
Eppingstall tells the court that police have never located Patterson’s “Phone A.”
04.47 BST
The court has adjourned for a lunch break.
The trial will resume at 2.15pm.