Mushroom Lunch: Erin Patterson's appeal confirmed

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We thought it was coming, and today it was confirmed.

Erin Patterson will be appealing.

I'm the ABC's court reporter, Christian Silver.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Welcome to the case of the mushroom lunch.

Just a week after four people sat down for a family lunch in rural Victoria, three of them were dead.

Homicide detectives are still piecing together what exactly happened at the lunch.

It's certainly looking like the symptoms are consistent with death cap mushrooms.

Erin Patterson said she bought the dried mushrooms at a supermarket and an Asian grocery store months earlier.

I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest.

Less than a month on from the sentencing of Erin Patterson, we have suddenly found ourselves back in court today.

And to bring you the latest on that hearing, her legal team and her plans for appeal, I've roped in Christian Silver to give us an update.

Welcome back.

Pleasure to be here.

It was a very short hearing, but there's a bit to unpack.

Yeah,

more than you would expect to come from a, I think, a three-minute hearing or four-minute hearing that we had in the Victorian Supreme Court today.

We have been planning on bringing you an episode of the case of the romance scam today, but we did promise Patterson updates when they come.

So we'll have that Q ⁇ A episode in your feed on Tuesday next week instead, which will give you the weekend to catch up on that series if you'd missed it.

Today, though, Christian, this hearing came about very quickly.

It did.

It was an administrative hearing, which we only found out about yesterday.

Look, since the sentencing, we have been putting a bit of a timer on

because the 28-day deadline to lodge an appeal was coming up.

It was going to be at 11.59 p.m.

on Monday the 6th of October.

So we kind of had this date in mind, but then we found out about this hearing that was on today.

And it was at that hearing where Patterson's new barrister confirmed that they will be lodging an appeal.

But we didn't get to hear the details of that and the case was adjourned until the next time.

Yeah, and yeah, the thing to kind of clarify here is that today was not an appeal hearing, but it kind of, I guess, sort of ended up being appeal related because we, yeah, we got that confirmation that Erin Patterson would be appealing her murder conviction.

Correct.

So what's going to happen now is that deadline of 11.59 p.m.

on Monday still stands to some extent.

What we understand is that Patterson's lawyers will have to lodge some paperwork, but they will be granted an automatic 28-day extension to get the rest of it done.

This is coming about because the Victorian Supreme Court is trialling something new.

They've received feedback from lawyers that basically after people are sentenced the lawyers are finding they're not having enough time to get all the paperwork ready for appeals within 28 days.

So this is kind of saying, start the process, but we'll give you another four weeks to get it done properly.

So I expect

that's what will happen in this case too.

Okay, cool.

So yeah, they'll start, you know, get a couple of documents in by Monday next week.

A date actually came around really quickly, didn't it?

So they get some of that in, and then I guess we slowly find out what the grounds of the appeal are, because at this stage we don't know the grounds, do we?

We don't know the grounds.

And that's the key thing.

When they file the documents, they tend to give a fairly abridged version, but it's got enough in there for us to get a good sense of where they'll be heading.

So I'm intrigued to hear what it is.

I mean, usually you can't just say the jury got it wrong, we don't like their decision.

They're going to have to find some sort of error in the law or something that Justice Beale did while running the trial that, you know, was very unfair to Aaron Patterson or maybe something the prosecution did.

Look, I'm sure over that course of that 10-week trial, Colin Mandy and co.

were

probably making a note of every time there was something they didn't like.

But yeah, we'll just have to wait and see.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, like you say, these are the kind of the grounds of an appeal are basically the sort of the points of law are the various bits that they're going to try and challenge Erin Patterson's guilty verdict on.

Erin Patterson guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder for the lunch that she held in 2023.

You know, we don't know what the grounds are in this case, Christian, but from other cases that you've covered, what could they be and how might it look?

Often defence lawyers will go after something the prosecution did.

They might say that there was an unfair tactic that's been used.

You know, sometimes someone may slip up,

say something that they shouldn't in front of the jury, and the trial proceeds, but then the defence has a long memory and comes back to it.

So they'll be...

maybe looking at those kinds of things.

They look very closely at the judges' directions as well, and you'll remember

those directions went for a week.

Our listeners will definitely remember that week of the Mushroom Case Daily series where it was just Justice Beale talking to the jury.

So the defence lawyers will definitely take a look at that.

They'll see, did Justice Beale say anything that was unfair to us?

I wonder too, and I'm just purely speculating here.

Even before this trial started, Justice Beale made a number of pre-trial rulings, including evidence and knocking things out.

I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I wonder, can they come back to some of that and say that it was unfair, that something made its way into the trial that put Patterson at a major disadvantage?

And this thing has also stuck in the back of my mind.

Again, I don't know whether it carries any weight, but you'll remember right back to the very first day

of the trial when Justice Beale told the jury members, look, Erin Patterson was actually also charged with attempted murder in relation to her husband, but that's no longer happening.

Put that out of your mind and let's proceed.

And it was never spoken about again in front of the jury.

But I do wonder, like,

is that a ground for appeal?

Because

surely some jury members didn't forget hearing about that.

So I'm intrigued.

I can't wait to see what it is that they'll be challenging those verdicts on.

Yeah, absolutely.

And in terms of

when we might get the grounds, when when we find out exactly what those challenges are, I mean, you know, you're saying that the kind of the deadline is Monday coming and then there's that period where they can kind of finish the paperwork.

When do you think we will know in that period exactly what this is?

I suppose it's either going to be in a few days or maybe in about a month's time when we'll get those details.

So the initial deadline of the 6th of October, if you add 28 days to that, it brings you to the 3rd of November, which is just before the Melbourne Cup.

Having said all that, if generally someone misses a deadline by a day or two in these courts, they're fairly forgiving.

But still a very long way to play out in the process.

Yeah, and how does this process play out?

I mean, imagine they file the grounds for appeal, then that appeal gets heard.

I assume the appeal court is in the name.

And then if that's successful, another trial.

How does it look?

Potentially, yes.

So what happens is they file the paperwork, It goes to the Court of Appeal, which is the state's highest court.

And

judges of the Court of Appeal will take a look at the written material that's been filed.

And actually, the very first decision they'll make is, will we even consider this?

If they believe, yeah, there could be some merit to this, we'll give this a chance.

If they think that's the case, then they'll get the lawyers in for a proper hearing

where they'll have the proper legal argument about the grounds for the appeal.

And this will all just be done before a panel of the judges.

There won't be any jury involved in this process.

Once that's done, then those judges have to weigh it all up.

If they feel that Erin Patterson has been unfairly wronged to the extent where it's just so bad that it's

basically voided her right to a fair trial.

They'll order a fresh trial, you would imagine, because in Victoria, we don't tend to have judge-only trials.

So they're usually done with a jury.

And if the Court of Appeal was to rule that, then yeah, we'd be back for another mushroom trial.

So more well 2026?

Definitely not 2026.

I think at best, if it would happen, and it's a big if, it's 2027 at the earliest, but

that's not to say it would be an exact repeat of the trial that we just had.

You know, it could be that the prosecution reframes its case.

We know Patterson took the stand.

If there's another trial, maybe she decides not to.

And

obviously this case has

drawn attention that has just not been seen for decades.

And I'm sure that if the Court of Appeal saw some merits to Patterson's legal challenge, that her lawyers will say this woman can't get a fair trial.

She should just be let go.

Wow.

I'm speculating here, but I've seen it done before where they've tried that tactic.

It's pretty hard to get up.

But this is a special case.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess if there was any case or any situation where that may get up, I mean, this would be the one you would be looking pretty closely at, I imagine.

And it is, and there's people who will be listening to this podcast from other states in in Australia and other places around the world where there is a bit of a dual system where some cases are heard by a judge only and some are by a jury.

But here, the murder cases are almost always jury cases.

Yeah, right.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Christian.

You know, I think one of the interesting things about today's hearing as well, it was an administrative hearing with one very notable absence in the room.

Listeners to this podcast would be incredibly familiar with the name Colin Mandy SC.

Today, he was not going to work for Aaron Patterson.

We had a new bloke in his place, a barrister, Richard Edney.

Correct.

Long live Colin Mandy.

I think he served Aaron Patterson to the best of his ability, but for whatever reason, there's a change.

And we've also been told that there's another barrister that's going to be joining Patterson's team.

He wasn't there today, but his chambers did confirm to the ABC that he is involved.

His name is Julian McMahon SC.

To people who followed Australian law for a while, that name may be familiar.

He's actually a lawyer who represented members of the Bali Nine on death row.

He's a human rights advocate.

He was Victoria's Australian of the Year in 2016.

So he's a highly respected barrister.

And it will be interesting to see what his involvement in all this will be going forward.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, interesting to hear about the people that are going to be working with Aaron Patterson as this goes forward.

I mean, you know, the defence had this deadline of appealing the conviction of Monday.

Is there anything the prosecution will be doing at this point?

Are we waiting for anything from them?

We are, actually.

They have the option to also appeal Justice Beale's sentence.

Obviously, the prosecution's not going to be challenging the jury's verdict.

But they did call for Aaron Patterson to be sentenced to life in prison with no parole.

And Justice Beale gave Patterson a 33-year non-parole period.

So now it's up to the Office of Public Prosecutions and its director to decide whether they want to actually challenge that.

We would expect to hear about a potential challenge by the end of Monday.

That may or may not come.

Jane Warren, one of the prosecutors that we saw during the trial, was in court today.

She didn't say anything about it.

So it's just a matter of waiting now.

We will keep in the loop with any developments here on the case of.

As soon as we have some more news for you, Christian, we'll drag you back into the studio and get the latest.

But thank you so much for joining us for this pod.

Pleasure.

It feels like it will never end.

And I sort of cast my mind back to that sentencing hearing where Justice Beale kind of hinted at Patterson, to me anyway, kind of saying,

don't appeal.

That was the vibe I got.

He didn't use those words of course but

the fact that she's reopening this or trying to means that it's going to be difficult for the victims' families.

They can't put a full stop on this.

They'll now be wondering what comes next.

It's going to take up more time for the police as well obviously and lawyers, taxpayers.

So it does drag us all back into the fray again.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's a lot happening with it.

And again, yeah, thinking of what this would mean for the victims' families in all of this.

Ian Wilkinson as well, who was the surviving lunch guest from that meal in 2023.

All of them having to think through this and, yeah, kind of, you know, relive it all again after they had probably hoped it was all over.

Yeah, I mean, can you imagine if...

There was another trial and all of these witnesses would have to be called again.

I don't want to think about it, to be honest.

No, no,

let's not think that far ahead.

There's a number of steps in the way and we'll keep in the loop of all of them as we get to that point.

The case of will be back in your feed on Tuesday next week with the case of the romance scam, a Q ⁇ A episode with James Oden and Olivia Rousseau.

There's that coming for you in this feed next week.

And speaking of updates and appeals, there's been quite a bit of news in the case of the Crock Wrangler as well.

So I'll be back with Olivana next week

to catch up on some of that.

There has been an appeal filed by Matt Wright's lawyers.

They're also back in court next Tuesday, too.

So, plenty to catch up on there.

And we'll soon be moving on to our next case as well: the case of Snowtown parole.

One of the murderers involved in those serial killings could soon leave prison.

So, we're going to find out how that parole process works.

This will all be coming to you first through the ABC Listen app.

So, make sure you chase up the case on that so we can be first in your ears when we come out.

The Case of the Mushroom Lunch is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Christian Silver, and Stephen Stockwell.

Supervising producer for this episode is Tamar Cranswick.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson.

Thank you to our legal queen, senior lawyer Jasmine Sims for her legal advice, to the Victorian newsroom and to Audio Studios manager Eric George for their support.

This episode was produced on the land of the Rundery people.

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