‘very rare’ for accused to hold gatherings, says ex-husband

The estranged husband of a woman who served a poisonous mushroom lunch to her family says it was “very rare” for her to hold social gatherings at home.

Simon Patterson was invited to the fatal meal prepared by Erin Patterson – but decided not to attend the day before.

Mr Patterson is the first witness in the trial of Ms Patterson – who is charged with the murder of three relatives and the attempted murder of another, with the case centring on a beef wellington lunch at her house in July 2023.

Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty and her defence team says she “panicked” after unintentionally serving poison to family members she loved.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66. Local pastor Ian Wilkinson survived after weeks of treatment in hospital.

The jury has been shown text messages exchanged between Simon and Erin Patterson the day before the deadly mushroom lunch.

Mr Patterson said he felt “too uncomfortable” about attending the lunch.

Erin Patterson responded: “That’s really disappointing. I’ve spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow… It’s important to me that you’re all there tomorrow and that I can have the conversations that I need to have.”

The prosecution alleges Ms Patterson invited the group to lunch “on the pretence she’d been diagnosed with cancer”.

The court in Morwell, regional Victoria, heard that between the couple’s marriage in 2007 and separation in 2015, there were a number of periods of separation and reconciliation – including Erin Patterson leaving her husband and their baby son in the middle of a road trip across Australia in 2009.

Mr Patterson had to drive from Townsville to Perth – a distance of about 5,000 km (3,100 miles) – alone with the child, he told the court.

The couple met in 2002, while both working at Monash City Council, where Mr Patterson was a civil engineer.

Asked about his wife, Mr Patterson said: “Erin is very intelligent.

“Some of the things that attracted me to her in the first place is definitely her intelligence. She’s quite witty and can be quite funny.”

Asked about how his wife got on with his parents, Don and Gail Patterson, Mr Patterson said: “She especially got on with dad. They shared a love of knowledge and learning in the world.”

With his voice faltering, Mr Patterson added: “I think she loved his gentle nature.”

He said Ms Patterson held a university degree in business and accounting, and was also qualified as an air traffic controller having worked at Melbourne’s Tullemarine airport.

Mr Patterson painted a picture of a relationship peppered with periods of separation – the first within the first two years of marriage – at one point becoming emotional and asking for tissues.

After the final separation there was a lot of communication by text message he said, including “banter” and talk about politics, he said.

But there was a change in the relationship in 2022 when Ms Patterson was “upset” when her husband listed himself as separated on his tax return.

The “chatty nature” of their relationship “pretty much stopped” after this, Mr Patterson said – with communication now only about the “practical management” of their family life.

Wearing a navy suit, white shirt and purple tie, he told the court that Ms Patterson received a “substantial inheritance” from her grandmother which Mr Patterson estimated at A$2m ($1.3m; £964,000) – though it was not paid in a lump sum and was “dribbled out” by the executors of the estate.

The jury has heard that there is no dispute that the lunch of beef wellington, mashed potatoes and green beans contained death cap mushrooms and caused the guests’ illnesses.

Whether Ms Patterson intended to kill or cause very serious injury is the main issue in the case, the judge has told the jury.

The court heard the couple had married in 2007 and had two children together – though separated permanently in 2015 .

They had remained “amicable” including sharing family holidays, though there was a falling out over child support payments in 2022, the jury was told.

During the prosecution’s opening statement on Wednesday, lead defence barrister Nanette Rogers said the jury would hear evidence that Ms Patterson had travelled to a location, near her home in Leongatha, where death cap mushroom sightings had been logged on a naturalist website.

And in the days after the lunch, she took a number of steps to “conceal” what she had done, the prosecution alleged.

There’d be evidence that she lied to investigators about the source of the mushrooms in the dish – saying some had come from an Asian grocery in Melbourne and she had never foraged wild ones. And she made a trip to a local dump to dispose of a food dehydrator prosecutors say she used to prepare the toxic meal.

Ms Patterson’s barrister has said she did not deliberately serve poisoned food to her guests.

“The defence case is that she panicked because she was overwhelmed by the fact that these four people had become so ill because of the food she had served them.”

The court heard how Mr Patterson spoke to his father the morning after the lunch and discovered both his parents had been up since midnight with vomiting and diahorrea and that they had called an ambulance.

And after trying to call his aunt and uncle, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, he went to their home when they did not answer.

“Ian answered the door. He looked grey and spooked,” Mr Patterson recalled. “Yeah, he was struggling.

“I said ‘How are you?’ He said ‘Not good’.”

Mr Patterson then saw Heather Wilkinson sitting on the couch, he told the court.

“She looked pretty crook. She had a container as a spew bucket, ” he said.

After Mr Wilkinson left the room, Heather spoke to him, he confirmed, under questioning from prosecutor Dr Rogers.

“We didn’t have much conversation, but she was puzzled and she said ‘I noticed Erin served herself her food on a coloured plate which was different to the rest’.”

“I acknowledged I’d heard her, but did not progress it as a conversation,” he added.

Because he had been told an ambulance would have taken an hour to arrive, Mr Patterson drove the couple to hospital in the Wilkinsons’ car when Heather Wilkinson raised the subject once more.

“She mentioned the coloured plate again, She asked me ‘Is Erin short of crockery? Is that why she would have this different coloured plate that she served herself with?” Mr Patterson said.

“I can’t remember the exact phrase but it was something like that.

And what did you reply, the prosecutor asked?

“I said yes, Erin doesn’t have that many plates and that may be the reason.”

Mr Patterson became emotional again, describing going to see his parents at Korumburra hospital where they were in the same room but separate beds.

“Dad was substantially worse than mum. He was really struggling,” he said fighting back tears..

“He was lying on his side. He was hunched quite noticeably, with a really discoloured face, struggling to speak.

“Speaking was an effort, taking the energy to speak was an effort and his voice was strained in a way that he wasn’t right inside. He was in pain.”