Erin Patterson has taken to the witness box in her triple murder trial after being called to give evidence by her defence team.
Patterson, 50, is facing a high-profile trial after pleading not guilty to murdering three of her estranged husband’s relatives and the attempted murder of another. Prosecutors allege she deliberately poisoned them by serving them a beef wellington meal that contained death cap mushrooms in July 2023.
Gail and Don Patterson, Erin Patterson’s ex-husband’s parents, died as a result of the illness after the lunch. Heather Wilkinson also died in hospital. Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, was in a critical condition in hospital, but recovered.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty.
On Monday afternoon, defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, started by asking Patterson about her life in July 2023 before the lunch took place.
Patterson explained that both of her children lived with her full-time, but they could see their father, Simon, “whenever they wanted to”.
“They could see Simon whenever they wanted to and practically what that meant was [our daughter] spent a big part of Saturday afternoon and evenings with Simon,” she said.
Asked about the nature of her relationship with Simon, Patterson said it was “functional” but no longer included banter.
“From the start of the year to July, we mainly just related on logistical things like church, the streaming, the kids, but we didn’t relate on friend things, banter, like we used to. That changed at the start of the year,” she said.
Mandy asked Patterson what wasn’t going well for her in 2023. She said she felt more distance with her in-laws.
“I had felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family and particularly Don and Gail perhaps had a bit more distance and space between us. We saw each other less,” she said. “Partly it was a consequence of I no longer lived in the same town as Don and Gail.”
“I’d come to have concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much in the family. Perhaps I wasn’t being invited to so many things.”
Patterson told the court that she first met Simon at the City of Monash, where they both worked in 2004. They were married in 2007. After meeting Simon, she converted to Christianity after always being an atheist.
Erin and Simon separated between 2009 and 2015.
“I would say that even though obviously our relationship was struggling to cause a separation, it was really important to both of us to cooperate about [our son] and make it as easy on him as possible,” Patterson told the court when asked about the nature of their separation.
“Primarily what we struggled with over the entire course of our relationship … it was, we just couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something,” she says.
“We could never communicate in a way that would make each of us feel heard and understood.”
The hearing has adjourned for the day and will continue tomorrow.