sentenced to life<\/a> behind bars after serving her lunch guests a death cap mushroom-laced meal, is fighting to quash her convictions in the Victorian Court of Appeal.<\/p>\nShe did not appear at court in person on Wednesday, instead watching the hearing on a video link from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.<\/p>\n
Dressed in a royal blue jumper, the 51-year-old murderer appeared to be reading over notes as the courtroom filled with the members of the public and journalists who had been queuing outside for close to an hour. <\/p>\n
Her surviving victim Ian Wilkinson and other members of the Wilkinson and Patterson families were also seated in the front row as lawyers began their arguments.<\/p>\n
Erin Patterson’s new barrister attacks the integrity of his client’s trial because of the jury sequestration.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Patterson’s new barrister Richard Edney started by attacking the integrity of his client’s trial because of the jury sequestration.<\/p>\n
Jury members remained together during their deliberations but ended up staying in the same hotel as the lead investigator and members of the prosecution team.<\/p>\n
Edney told the court that decision was “catastrophic” as it could have resulted in inappropriate communication or subconscious influence.<\/p>\n
When Justice Peter Kidd questioned whether there was any evidence of communication between jurors and the parties, Edney said there was not.<\/p>\n
But he maintained it was still a failure of process that had not been explained by the prosecution and should lead to a re-trial.<\/p>\n
“It does amount to a fundamental irregularity,” Edney said.<\/p>\n
Patterson’s legal team will argue further appeal grounds over the next two days, including that she suffered a substantial miscarriage of justice due to an “unfair and oppressive” cross-examination.<\/p>\n
Victoria’s top prosecutor will then launch into the Crown’s own appeal against Patterson’s sentence.<\/p>\n
Brendan Kissane KC is expected to argue her 33-year non-parole period was manifestly inadequate. <\/p>\n
A jury found Patterson deliberately served beef Wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms to her former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.<\/p>\n
The three guests died after the July 2023 lunch at Patterson’s Leongatha home, in regional Victoria, while Heather’s husband Ian fell seriously ill from the meal but survived.<\/p>\n
Patterson was also convicted of Ian Wilkinson’s attempted murder. <\/p>\n
The appeal hearing before Justices Stephen McLeish, Lesley Taylor and Peter Kidd continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Triple murderer Erin Patterson should be retried because of the “catastrophic” decision to sequester jurors in the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-573623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-australia","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573623","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=573623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}