Erin Patterson’s barrister says the jury in her triple murder trial cannot be convinced she did not eat the same beef wellingtons as her lunch guests, and should ignore evidence from the only other survivor of the meal that she served herself on a different coloured plate.
Colin Mandy SC also said in his closing address that Patterson was “not on trial for being a liar”, and warned jurors against using “dangerous and seductive” hindsight reasoning to find her guilty.
Patterson, 50, is facing three charges of murder and one of attempted murder in the Victorian supreme court.
The charges relate to the alleged deliberate poisoning of four lunch guests with beef wellingtons served at her house in Leongatha on 29 July 2023.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering the relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson – his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and aunt, Heather Wilkinson – and attempting to murder his uncle, Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.
At the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell on Wednesday, Mandy said there was evidence that allowed the jury to find Patterson suffered death cap mushroom poisoning, as her guests had done, but that she suffered less severe poisoning.
He said this could have been due to her age, weight of more than 100kg, the fact she threw up hours after the lunch because she felt bloated, and the different toxic response of individuals.
This conclusion, that Patterson suffered a lower grade of poisoning, was supported by the evidence of Dimitri Gerostamoulos, Victoria’s chief toxicologist, Mandy said.
The prosecution alleges Patterson did not eat the same beef wellingtons as her guests, and was appearing to be sick after the lunch to avoid suspicion.
Mandy said the jury should also find that if Patterson was lying about vomiting after binge eating cake after the lunch, then she would have changed her story to more clearly benefit her.
If she was lying, Mandy said, Patterson would not have said she vomited hours after the lunch, but rather immediately after the guests left, and she would have also given evidence that her vomit contained beef wellington, rather than saying she did not know.
Mandy, asking the jury to pardon the pun, said they should be careful about how they considered the “colourful” evidence about the plates used to serve the lunch.
He said they should find Ian was “honestly mistaken” when he gave evidence the guests were served on a matching set of four grey plates, while Patterson served herself on a smaller coloured plate.
Mandy said the evidence of Simon, Patterson’s children, a friend of her son’s, and the footage of the police warrant shown in court was consistent about no such plates being used.
Mandy twice said that Patterson was not on trial for being a liar, once in reference to her behaviour after the lunch, and another in reference to misleading her lunch guests about having cancer.
The earlier reference came as Mandy was expanding on what he considered the fifth overarching theme of his closing address: hindsight reasoning.
He had flagged there were only expected to be four such themes on Tuesday: the “flawed approach” taken by the prosecution to the evidence, the honestly mistaken memory of witnesses, the burden of proof, and the duty of fairness incumbent on the prosecution.
“This is not a court of moral judgment, you can’t, you shouldn’t, take a leap from this lie about a lump on her elbow to finding her guilty of triple murder,” Mandy said.
“Those two things are a long way apart.”
Mandy said the prosecution theory that Patterson lied to her lunch guests about having cancer because she knew the lie would “die with them”, or, as he described it, would take it “to their graves” was an “illogical and irrational theory”.
“It’s not a good thing … misleading people about whether you’ve got cancer, but it’s got nothing to do with any intention to kill or to harm them,” Mandy said.
Mandy also said the prosecution theory that Patterson wanted Simon at the lunch so that he could be killed was “absurd”.
Hindsight reasoning was dangerous and seductive, Mandy said, as it distorted how people evaluated decisions and actions that occurred in the past.
“Whatever Erin Patterson’s intention was when she served the meal, is what it was,” he said.
“It’s the prosecution’s job to prove what the accused actually did, and not to engage in hypothetical comparisons about what you or someone else might do in the same situation.
“Things seem obvious in retrospect, but that’s not the right way of approaching it.”
Mandy went on to say that certain evidence can seem sinister in hindsight, and provide a “false clarity about ambiguous situations”.
Bad outcomes also made reasonable possibilities seem less plausible, he said.
He described the prosecution’s case in relation to Patterson picking death cap mushrooms in Loch after a post was made on iNaturalist, and then using her dehydrator to dry them, as “speculation upon speculation upon speculation”.
The court has been told that Patterson’s phone data suggested she may have stopped in Loch after the posts were made, and that photos of mushrooms shown on electronic scales appeared consistent with death caps.
Mandy also said to the jury, in a section of his address where he asked them to consider the evidence about why Patterson’s children were not at the lunch: “What’s more likely? That she wanted to kill everyone, or that she wanted to reconnect with her family for the sake of her children?”
Mandy’s closing address will resume on Thursday.
The jury was told by Justice Christopher Beale earlier this week that he did not expect to finish his directions to them in the case before next Tuesday afternoon.
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