Jury urged to reject ‘ridiculous’ and ‘convoluted’ propositions in Erin Patterson mushroom trial as defence completes closing address
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Version 0 of 1. Barrister for triple-murder accused tells jurors they should accept mushroom cook’s account of panic about blame for fatal lunch Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Erin Patterson was assumed to be guilty within days of the beef wellington lunch, and the jury in her triple-murder trial should reject “ridiculous” and “convoluted” propositions to ensure she is not wrongfully convicted, the Victorian supreme court has heard. Patterson’s barrister, Colin Mandy SC, completed his closing address in her trial on Thursday, telling the jury there was not enough evidence to find her guilty, as the prosecution had assumed “she’s guilty from the start, and then [picked] the pieces of evidence that meet that theory”. Patterson, 50, is facing three charges of murder and one of attempted murder at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell. 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. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email 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. Mandy said there were four “ridiculous” and “convoluted” propositions relied upon by the prosecution that the jury should reject. He said it was wrong for the prosecution to tell the jury it did not matter that Patterson had no motive for the alleged crimes, saying that a thorough investigation, including the analysis of electronic devices, messages exchanged with her online friends, and evidence from family witnesses, had found only “18 years’ worth of what we call anti-motive evidence, evidence of why she wouldn’t want to do anything to these people”. He said the “cancer lie” that Patterson relied upon in order to justify the lunch invitation also should be rejected, given she told none of her guests about it before the lunch, and only told them after they ate the meal. It was “absurd”, Mandy said, for the prosecution to claim that Patterson thought her guests would take the secret of the cancer “to the grave”, given she had told Simon and his parents about medical issues weeks earlier. The fourth, he said, was the “illogical” proposition that Patterson thought the lunch guests falling unwell “would all be passed off as some strange case of gastro, where everyone died, except her”. Mandy said the jury should accept Patterson’s account that she started to panic about being blamed for the lunch after a conversation with Simon on 1 August 2023, when she says he asked her whether she had used a food dehydrator to poison his parents. Simon denies the conversation occurred. “She was freaking out, people were blaming her … understandably, because any way you look at it, it was her fault,” he said. “That’s when the wheel starts turning. “She starts panicking, and she starts lying, from that point.” He said, however, that none of that conduct should be used by the jury when considering her guilt, including the actions she took to conceal the fact foraged mushrooms went into the meal. He also said that the jury should ignore the prosecution claim Patterson deliberately concealed her main phone from police. “All of the things she did after the lunch fall into that category, and none of them can actually change the intention she had at the time of the lunch,” he said. “Either she had the intention [to kill or seriously harm the guests] or she didn’t. “You can’t change the past because you act badly in the future.” Patterson should be considered a reliable witness, who did not have to appear at her own trial, Mandy said, but came through the experience “unscathed” and with her account remaining “coherent and consistent”. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion “You would not have had the impression that she was trying to charm you or persuade you. She was just going about the job that she had of answering the questions truthfully. “Even where the truth was deeply embarrassing and even where the truth involved admitting to you that she told lies … and that she behaved in a way that she thought was wrong and that she was ashamed of. “What more could she do? She exposed herself and her account to close examination and careful scrutiny at the hands of a very experienced barrister.” He said that although a court case could appear like a boxing match between two sides, it was actually more like high jump, but with only the prosecution required to clear the high bar of reasonable doubt. Mandy said the jury should reject, however, a different analogy: that the case was like a jigsaw puzzle, as had been suggested by the prosecution. Nanette Rogers SC said in her closing address that this was the right way to look at it, as evidence in isolation might not make sense until it was placed next to other pieces to form a picture. Mandy told the court the prosecution’s was a “seductive analogy” but that it was also misleading and not useful. “Because what happens when you buy a jigsaw puzzle is that you’ve got the picture on the box and you are trying to get all the pieces to fit the picture on the box. “You know what the final image should look like, because it’s on the box. “In a trial, assuming you know the picture, is guilt and then trying to make the evidence fit that picture is working backwards – and perhaps that’s why you are encouraged to think about it in that way, because that’s … what the prosecution’s done: taken things, using the benefit of hindsight, to create a picture.” Mandy finished his closing address by saying: “When you consider the actual evidence, and consider it properly, methodically, analytically, your verdict on these charges should be not guilty.” Justice Christopher Beale also told the jury at the start of the trial in April that “it may help you to consider the pieces of evidence to be like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; while one piece may not be very helpful by itself, when all the pieces are put together, the picture may become clear”. “However, when putting all the pieces together, you must take care not to jump to conclusions. It is sometimes easy for people to be too readily persuaded of a fact on the basis of insufficient evidence or evidence that turns out to be truly coincidental,” Beale said. Beale told the jury they would not return to court until Tuesday, and that his closing charge to them would take at least two days. This means the jury is not expected to retire to consider a verdict in the case before Wednesday. |