Day 25, as it happened: Patterson concedes death cap mushrooms were in beef Wellington she fed guests
Accused killer cook Erin Patterson has conceded death cap mushrooms were in a beef Wellington she fed her lunch guests after telling a jury she often foraged for fungi and enjoyed buying exotic varieties because they tasted better.
10.24am
Members of public arrive at court from 6am
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Members of the public began to arrive at the Latrobe Valley law courts about 6am today, as TV crews filmed their first live crosses for the morning shows.By the time doors opened around 9am, there was a crowd of about 25 people lining up outside the building waiting to go through the court’s security check.
The courtroom where the trial is being heard is reasonably smaller than an average Supreme Court courtroom in Melbourne, with only three rows of seats for the public, media representatives and family members.
10.38am
Day 25 in pictures
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Award-winning Age and Sydney Morning Herald photographer Jason South is in Morwell covering the mushroom lunch trial.Here are some of his pictures from this morning.
10.41am
Full courthouse in Morwell
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Extra police, from the homicide squad, have also arrived – including Detective Senior Constable David Martin-Alcaide and Detective Sergeant Nigel L’Estrange – who are both seated in the front-row of courtroom 4 next to lead Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall.There are no spare seats in the courtroom, with a guard seated at the door.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall.Credit: Jason South
10.49am
Erin Patterson unpacks how her inheritance was spent
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Erin Patterson has returned to the witness box, starting day 25 of her trial by telling the jury about an inheritance she was given from her grandmother after she died in 2006.Patterson’s defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, is asking about who received the inheritance.
Next to Patterson in the witness box is a paper cup, a jug of water and a box of tissues. You can also see a pair of dark-coloured glasses resting on the wooden box to her right.
She is speaking into a microphone that records her evidence.
Patterson confirmed she was one many beneficiaries of that estate, which was distributed over a number of years. She said the first of the distributions was in February 2007, and the last was towards the end of 2015.
“There were a number of commercial companies that needed to be sold,” she said.
Patterson said the funds had allowed her to travel internationally and to buy a home to settle in when they were in Quinninup, Western Australia.
“We were able to help out Simon’s siblings with loans as well to help them buy homes,” she said.
The court heard the loans were in the order of $400,000 each.
Tucking her brown hair behind her right ear, she said the payments covered inflation with no interest.
“I started a second-hand bookstore,” Patterson said. “I spent months travelling around south-west Western Australia collecting books.”
That was through estate sales and from libraries getting rid of stock, she said.
“I painted the inside, I brought about 30 or 35 bookshelves from IKEA and put them together. And I got things like internet and phone put on,” she said.
She operated that bookshop for about a year. The jury heard Patterson’s father died in 2011 and her mother in 2019. Patterson said she got access to some of her mother’s estate, which allowed her to buy the Mount Waverley property and a block in Gibson Street, Leongatha.
10.54am
‘Don and Gail were so welcoming’: Patterson details return to Victoria to be close to in-laws
Erin Patterson smiled and nodded and she told the jury she moved back to Victoria partly because her son wanted to be closer to his “nan and papa”, Don and Gail Patterson.The accused again smiled when her barrister joked he needed his glasses after getting the year wrong that she went to New Zealand on holiday when they arrived back in Victoria.
Patterson said that they moved back to Victoria from Western Australia, so their son could be closer to family.
She said they first went to New Zealand for six weeks, before returning to Australia and spending six more weeks living in Don and Gail’s spare room.
“It was crammed in that all three of us were in one room, but it didn’t matter because Don and Gail were so welcoming to us,” she said.
“It was a really good experience.″
Patterson said they then moved into a rental in Bena and in 2014 she gave birth to her daughter.
“The day she was born was [my son’s] first day of school,” she said.
10.59am
‘I felt we had no choice’: A couple separate, divide assets and try to remain friends
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Erin Patterson told the jury that she and Simon formally separated at the end of 2015, but there were at least two occasions where they reconciled.“We tried to figure out an arrangement for the children. They had different needs,” she said.
She said they tried to figure out an arrangement where the kids could be together with both Simon and her. “We just wrote down what we had. Property, cash, what was owed to us and then just divided it down the middle, that’s the best way to describe it,” she said.
Patterson said no lawyers were involved in dividing the assets, and there was no acrimony.
The court heard that Erin owned the property at the time, Simon lived in Korumburra, and there was another home in town.
Patterson said that in the immediate aftermath of the separation it was difficult as it was in other separations but it only lasted a handful of weeks. ″We went back to being really good friends,” she said.
“I didn’t want to be separated but I felt we had no choice.“
Patterson said the main issues in their relationship stemmed from not being able to talk about their problems in a way they would feel understood. “We really liked each other still. It was just the living together that didn’t work,” she said.
Patterson said that shortly after separating, Simon created his own engineering consulting company, so they arranged the care of the children around his commitment.
She said they continued to holiday as a family after the separation, including to Tasmania a couple of times, Darwin, Queensland, New Zealand, South Africa and to Erin’s mother’s house in Eden, in NSW.
Patterson has sipped water again as her voice grew croaky.
She said she continued to attend Patterson family gatherings after the separation in 2015 and until 2022, and continued to see family members outside of organised group gatherings.
