Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson will appeal her convictions, but her new lawyer has confirmed he needs more time to file the paperwork.<\/p>\n
Patterson’s appeal period was due to expire at 11.59pm on Monday but barrister Richard Edney on Thursday indicated in the Victorian Supreme Court they were not ready to lodge the appeal.<\/p>\n
Justice Christopher Beale noted the Court of Appeal’s new practice note, which grants appeal extensions as a matter of course if they’re lodged within 56 days of the sentence.<\/p>\n
While the paperwork is yet to be filed, Mr Edney said Patterson would lodge an appeal against a jury convicting her of three murders and one attempted murder.<\/p>\n
“I can indicate there will be an appeal against conviction,” he told the court.<\/p>\n
The Director of Public Prosecutions has yet to decide whether to appeal Patterson’s sentence, a spokeswoman confirmed. <\/p>\n
Patterson was jailed for life in September with a non-parole period of 33 years after she was found guilty of killing her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.<\/p>\n
The jury found she deliberately served beef Wellingtons that were laced with death cap mushrooms to her lunch guests in July 2023 at her Leongatha home in regional Victoria.<\/p>\n
Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, 69, also ate the meal and fell seriously ill but survived.<\/p>\n
Patterson, who this week turned 51 while in custody, has always maintained her innocence and claimed it was a terrible accident.<\/p>\n
But Justice Beale described the offending as the worst category of murder, noting the enormous betrayal of trust towards people she considered family.<\/p>\n
“They had all been good to you and your children over many years,” he said in his sentencing remarks. <\/p>\n
“Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson’s health … you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents.”<\/p>\n
The judge accepted there was no proven motive, but he found Patterson concocted an elaborate story to cover up her offending, including lying about a food dehydrator and having cancer.<\/p>\n
Patterson would have anticipated the victims experiencing protracted suffering when she chose to use the mushrooms to poison them, the judge added.<\/p>\n
Justice Beale said the severity of her crimes and her lack of pity warranted the maximum jail sentence but he would show her some mercy given her conditions in custody. <\/p>\n
He sentenced her to a 33-year non-parole period, noting she was essentially in solitary confinement for at least 22 hours a day. <\/p>\n
Edney did not indicate on Thursday that Patterson would also appeal her sentence, alongside her convictions.<\/p>\n
He will be the one to lead the fight in the Victorian Court of Appeal, after barrister Colin Mandy SC represented Patterson in her triple-murder trial.<\/p>\n
Edney previously represented Rebecca Payne, who was convicted of murdering her abusive husband by feeding him drug-laced biscuits and locking him in a freezer.<\/p>\n
Payne was originally jailed for 16 years but successfully reduced her sentence on appeal down to 12 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson will appeal her convictions, but her new lawyer has confirmed he needs more time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-55708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}