10:46
Defence: Patterson shouldn't be condemned because of 'hindsight'
Mr Mandy (pictured right) has continued his closing address to the jury and is talking about 'hindsight reasoning'.
Mr Mandy said the Crown asked the jury 'what would you do' in the situation Patterson was in after the lunch.
'We can't change the past,' he said.
'Whatever Erin Patterson's intention was when she served the meal is what it was.'
He suggested drawing hypothetical reasoning into the case was inappropriate.
Mr Mandy said it was an invitation to apply a moral judgement to what someone has done
'It's a distraction from the exercise you're undertaking,' he said.
Mr Mandy also told the jury it's not the job of the defence to explain 'hypothetical situations'.
'Hindsight reasoning can create a false clarity about ambiguous situations,' Mr Mandy said.
Mr Mandy said the intent may seem sinister if you look back and see what happened in the aftermath.
'Even if the actual evidence of that intent is weak,' Mr Mandy said.
10:48
Patterson 'not on trial for being a liar'
Mr Mandy told the jury they wouldn't know what they would have done in the same situation and added his client admitted to telling lies.
'She's not on trial for being a liar,' Mr Mandy said.
Mr Mandy said nothing about what Patterson did after the lunch changed her intention for the meal.
He said a person who made four people unwell like his client might have had motive to tell lies.
'Why tell people the leftovers existed at all?' Mr Mandy said.
'Why get rid of the meat… and keep the pastry and mushroom paste.'
10:57
Doubt cast over sister-in-law's evidence
Mr Mandy said there was some confusion over Tanya Patterson's evidence on what the accused did and didn't know about the condition of her lunch guests.
He told the jury people were going out of their way not to share information with Patterson.
Patterson, who is wearing an olive-coloured jumper, listened as Mr Mandy questioned when she learned Don and Gail (pictured) were in comas.
Mr Mandy said the doctors didn't tell Patterson Don and Gail were in comas.
'So how was Erin going to find that out?' Mr Mandy asked.
Mr Mandy suggested Patterson could have asked but also told the jury there was no evidence Don and Gail were in comas the day Tanya visited Erin at hospital on August 1.
'Tanya Patterson may well have an honest but mistaken memory of that conversation,' Mr Mandy said.
10:58
Patterson is 'of good character', jury hears
Mr Mandy has spoken highly of his client, and detailed to the jury she was a mother of two children.
'She's a person of good character,' Mr Mandy said
'Evidence is she always had a good relationship with Don and Gail … they treated her like a daughter.'
He reminded the jury about Patterson's evidence in the witness box where she expressed her love for each of her lunch guests.
Mr Mandy said his client had wanted to move from Western Australia back to Victoria to be closer to Simon's family, which she felt was her support network.
11:04
Jury reminded how Patterson 'respected' Don and Gail
Mr Mandy has reminded the jury of how close Patterson was with her estranged husband Simon's family.
The trial has heard from multiple family members of the four lunch guests including Simon's brother Matthew Patterson.
Matthew said Patterson had a 'positive relationship' with Don and Gail (pictured), and she 'respected his parents'.
The jury also heard Patterson's children loved their grandparents.
11:06
Patterson had a 'clear interest' in foraging for mushrooms
Mr Mandy said Patterson became interested in mushrooms during the Covid lockdowns.
He said it was popular across the world, and it became more popular during the lockdowns, and this was backed up with the evidence of fungi expert Dr Tom May.
'It's not made up, it's not fabricated, that's the evidence,' Mr Mandy said.
Mr Mandy reminded the jury about the isolation Victorians felt during those lockdowns.
'She photographed them, she picked them, she took them home,' Mr Mandy said
The jury was again shown images of mushrooms purportedly taken by Patterson which had been found on an SD card at her home.
The jury heard there was no doubt Patterson had foraged.
'Definitely a clear interest she had… it's not fake, it's not a lie,' Mr Mandy said.
11:10
Defence questions memory of Patterson's kids
Mr Mandy showed the jury photos of Patterson's kids while they were with her as she picked mushrooms.
He said it was evidence Patterson had an interest in foraging at the time Dr May said other people had become more interested in the practice.
Mr Mandy said Patterson’s kids did their police interview on August 16, 2023 – three years after those photos were taken.
He told the jury it’s not hard to believe the children may not have remembered their mum picking mushrooms a couple years earlier because of the time gap.
Mr Mandy also said it was Covid, the kids weren't at school, they may have wandered around during the walks and picking mushrooms may not have been memorable at the time as they are now.
11:20
Patterson looked up death caps because she 'loved mushrooms', jury hears
Mr Mandy said there is 'little doubt' that the death cap mushroom search found on the computer in Patterson's (pictured) home was made, because his client 'loved mushrooms'.
The jury heard Patterson 'loved mushrooms' and 'loved eating them'.
'It's a fact, it's evidence, it's not made up,' he said.
He said Patterson would 'pick all kinds of mushrooms'.
He said when Patterson found a mushroom she didn't know, she would try it and if it was okay 'eat more of it'.
Mr Mandy also suggested Patterson was 'not out in the wild foraging all the time' but 'did so on occasion' when mushrooms were in season.
Mr Mandy said death caps were 'notorious' and 'the deadliest mushroom in the world'.
He explained to the jury this is why his client would have looked up information on them.
'On May 28, 2022 there is little doubt it was Erin Patterson looking up that information on the Cooler Master computer,' he said.
11:44
Defence: iNaturalist death cap search not linked to 'planning the lunch'
Mr Mandy (pictured right) said just because Patterson landed on an iNaturalist page about a death cap sighting on May 28, 2022, doesn't mean it's linked to the lunch 14 months later.
He reminded the jury Patterson's claim she was foraging is 'her account' and 'you know she doesn't have to prove anything'.
'There is no way the prosecution is able to rebut that claim with this kind of evidence,' Mr Mandy said.
Mr Mandy also said the iNaturalist death cap search found on the Cooler Master PC was 14 months before the lunch.
'It's not suggested that activity had anything to do with planning that lunch… it's very brief, it's a matter of seconds…,' Mr Mandy said.
'The way you end up on a website varies [as you know if you use Google].'
Mr Mandy also said there was no evidence Patterson had previous knowledge of iNaturalist before the brief visit on May 28, 2022.
Mr Mandy said, at the time, the site contained no information on death caps in the Gippsland area.
Mr Mandy said his client likely checked the site to see if death caps grew in Gippsland.
'Maybe she'd seen some mushrooms earlier that day,' he said.
11:46
Patterson's iNaturalist searches were 'idle curiosity', jury hears
Mr Mandy said it was not perfectly clear how long Patterson was on the iNaturalist site but suggested it could have been under two minutes.
Mr Mandy also said it was 'idle curiosity just before ordering dinner'.
'This was not a person carefully studying [death caps]… it was a passing attention,' he said.
Mr Mandy said thousands of varieties of mushrooms grow in Victoria and not all had been identified.
'Death caps have only been observed twice ever in South Gippsland,' Mr Mandy said
The two posts were the sightings in Outtrim and Loch previously mentioned in evidence during the trial.
'And never before since,' Mr Mandy said.
'On the Crown case, you might think remarkably, extraordinarily, Erin Patterson observed and acted on the only two death cap mushroom sightings ever… like she was sitting there waiting for them,' he said.
Mr Mandy said Patterson ended up attending the party and the dispute was resolved.
11:52
Dispute over lunch victim's 70th birthday 'resolved'
The jury heard Patterson and her in-laws had a relationship throughout 2022 until October of that year, when there was a misunderstanding about Gail's 70th birthday, but Mr Mandy said 'that was resolved'.
The incident occurred on October 15 and 16 and involved a spat between Patterson and Simon (pictured) because the accused 'mistakenly' believed she had been left off the invitation list for Gail's 70th.
The jury previously heard Patterson had received a late invitation and she got into a heated argument with Simon but apologised the next day.
'I'm sorry for shouting at you… I'd like not to do that again…,' Patterson said.
Simon responded and apologised and said he wanted to be calm and listen better and also said he wouldn't describe what happened between them as 'shouting'.
'She's got the wrong end of the stick, and she's apologised… it's the opposite way a cold-blooded, calculated person would behave,' Mr Mandy said.
11:56
Patterson and Simon 'eternally polite to each other'
Mr Mandy is now addressing the jury about the tax return and school fees issues which occurred in late-2022.
The jury had previously heard Simon and Patterson's relationship suffered some friction over those topics but Mr Mandy said those issues were resolved 'amicably'.
The jury was then reminded about another dispute the couple had over the payment of their son's medical fees.
Simon said he couldn't pay due to advice he received from child support officials.
Mr Mandy said the dispute stood out because it was the only major spat the family had.
'These people are eternally polite to each other…,' Mr Mandy said.
'That's why it stood out…'
12:04
Defence shoots down claim Patterson was 'duplicitous'
The defence has dismissed the prosecution's theory that Patterson was 'duplicitous' with her true feelings about Simon's (pictured) family.
Mr Mandy said Patterson had a 'minor blow-up' with her in-laws, which the jury has seen in messages during the trial.
'It's not about very much at all,' Mr Mandy said.
Mr Mandy said his client wasn't rude or aggressive.
'She was standing up for herself and she was being direct,' he said.
Mr Mandy said the Crown suggested she had been living a duplicitous life but countered and said his client had simply talked it out with her in-laws while venting with online friends.
Mr Mandy said there was no other evidence that suggested Patterson hid her true feelings for the Pattersons.
'It just didn't happen,' he said.
'This was an aberration in her dealing with the Pattersons and there's nothing to say otherwise.'
Mr Mandy said Patterson's Facebook messages to online friends about her in-laws amounted to about 45 minutes of reading time among 600 pages of messages within that group.
Mr Mandy said the group was a 'safe space' for his client to talk freely about all kinds of issues.
'It was a private conversation, it was an emotional release,' he said.
Mr Mandy said it was a place to vent.
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