The judge in Erin Patterson’s murder trial has warned jurors not to reason that she is guilty just because they think she has lied.
Ms Patterson has been on trial in the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in regional Victoria for nine weeks.
She is accused of murdering her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson by serving them beef Wellingtons containing death cap mushrooms.
Heather’s husband Ian also attended the lunch at Erin Patterson’s home in the regional Victorian town of Leongatha in July 2023, but survived his illness. Ms Patterson is charged with his attempted murder.
Continuing his final instructions to the jury, Justice Christopher Beale on Friday gave the jury directions on how to consider alleged incriminating conduct by Ms Patterson — which he said were instances relied on by the prosecution as implied admissions of guilt.
Those included allegations that Ms Patterson had lied about being ill after the meal and had feigned symptoms.
At the same time, her guests were being hospitalised and were experiencing worsening illnesses.
Justice Beale recapped the evidence given by various witnesses, including health workers who observed or treated Ms Patterson in the days after the lunch, saying that prosecutors had argued Ms Patterson’s accounts of her illness — including when she had started experiencing diarrhoea and its frequency — were inconsistent.
The trial heard that the day after the lunch, when Ms Patterson said she was experiencing symptoms, she drove her son to a flying lesson at Tyabb, near Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula, stopping to go to the toilet on the side of the road.
The court was told during the trial that her son did not recall this incident.
During the trial, Ms Patterson admitted to some lies, including about whether she owned a food dehydrator or had dehydrated food.
“She told you in relation to those lies [about the food dehydrator], it was a ‘stupid, knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying’,” Justice Beale said on Friday.
Judge delves into instructions about how to consider alleged lies
Justice Beale told jurors there were “two ways” they could use Ms Patterson’s alleged lies in their deliberations if they found she had been untruthful.
The first was to assess Ms Patterson’s credibility.
Justice Beale said said told jurors that they could use their assessments to decide whether they believed other things she said, but stressed the need for caution.
“That is not to say just because you find the accused lied about one matter, you must also find she has been lying about everything else,” he said.
The second way the jury could use alleged lies, Justice Beale said, was as implied evidence of guilt.
However, he said they must only use this interpretation if they found that Ms Patterson had lied and believed that the only reasonable explanation for her having done so was because she had committed the offences she was charged with.
He warned the jury not to decide that just because she lied, she must be guilty.
“Even if you think the conduct makes the accused looks guilty, it doesn’t mean the accused is guilty.”
Justice Beale will resume his directions on Monday before the jury begins deliberations next week.