Mushroom cook Erin Patterson has denied faking symptoms to health authorities and her family after a deadly lunch to avoid raising suspicions she poisoned her guests.
Patterson has entered week seven of a Victorian Supreme Court trial accused of three murders and one attempted murder over a toxic mushroom dish she served up to her estranged husband Simon Patterson's family in July 2023.
Her former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, all died in hospital days after eating death cap mushroom-laced beef Wellingtons cooked by Patterson.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims the poisonings were a terrible accident.
Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC, on Tuesday accused the mushroom cook of faking her nausea, diarrhoea and abdominal pain in conversations with health professionals, her children and Simon.
"The reason you told so many people that you were unwell was because you wanted it to appear ... that you were also unwell from the lunch," Dr Rogers said.
"Incorrect," Patterson replied.
"You wanted it to appear that you were as seriously unwell as your four other lunch guests," the prosecutor said, which Patterson denied.
Dr Rogers suggested to Patterson, who is on her sixth day in the witness box, she wasn't unwell because she "didn't consume even a minute amount of death cap mushroom at the lunch".
"I have no idea if I did or I didn't," Patterson responded.
"You were not suffering from death cap mushroom poisoning," the prosecutor said.
"I have no idea," the accused replied.
"You did that because you knew you had not eaten death cap mushrooms ... and you knew how suspicious it would look if you did not seem sick like your guests," Dr Rogers said.
"Incorrect," the mushroom cook said.
Patterson had earlier responded to the prosecutor's statement she lied to medical professionals about vomiting to "try and account for why you didn't get seriously ill".
"I wish that was true but it's not," she said.
Dr Rogers questioned Patterson about her assisting police to locate the beef Wellington leftovers which she had placed in the bin outside her home.
"I suggest you assisted police in telling them about where the leftovers were as you knew you had no means to remove leftovers from the bin by yourself because you were at Leongatha Hospital," Dr Rogers said.
"Why wouldn't I just say there was no leftovers? That seems really convoluted," Patterson replied.
"I suggest you assisted police because if you hadn't told them where the leftovers were, then it would be suspicious," the prosecutor said.
"No idea about that," the accused said.
The 50-year-old had been facing prosecution accusations of lying as she disputed evidence from a doctor, nurse, Simon and what the only surviving lunch guest told the jury in her trial.
Patterson last week admitted foraging for wild mushrooms and accepted they may have been in the individual beef Wellingtons that she had prepared.
In her evidence from Friday, she said she had a pre-surgery appointment for a gastric bypass procedure at Enrich Clinic in Melbourne.
But on Tuesday, Dr Rogers put to Patterson that Enrich "does not offer gastric bypass or sleeve surgery".
"I don't know," Patterson said.
"I had an appointment with them ... it was for weight-loss surgery but maybe it was a different kind."
The prosecutor suggested she had lied about that appointment but Patterson said: "It wasn't a lie, that's what my memory was".
Dr Rogers quizzed Patterson about surviving lunch guest Ian Wilkinson's evidence to the jury about being served the beef Wellington on one of four large grey plates while she ate from a smaller orange or tan plate.
Patterson said she did not own grey plates and didn't serve herself on a plate that was orange, tan and small, "clarifying" she did not own any matching sets of plates.
The trial continues.
