Defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, has now resumed his closing address to the jury inside courtroom four.
Lunch survivor Ian Wilkinson is present with his children, as is Don Patterson’s brother, Colin Patterson. The family is sitting in the last row in the public gallery, a couple of rows behind the lead detective in the case, Stephen Eppingstall.
Accused mushroom cook Erin Patterson is listening from the back of the courtroom, dressed in a paisley top and brown cardigan.
Colin Mandy, SC, outside court on Thursday.Credit: Jason South
Mandy begins by clarifying a couple of points from his address yesterday. He said the prosecution had given more weight to online friend Christine Hunt’s account of Patterson’s attitude towards religion than the “people who knew her the best for 18 years, Simon and the Pattersons”.
“Erin Patterson was not an atheist,” Mandy said.
He also clarified that Patterson “did not say in her evidence that she actually tasted the duxelles after adding the dried mushrooms to it”, but that it was “entirely logical” to infer she would have done so as part of her preparation for the lunch on Saturday, July 29, 2023.
Mandy then turned to the morning after the fatal meal, when Patterson said she experienced diarrhoea after it had abated a bit overnight. Mandy said that was consistent with not much poison being in her system. He said it was difficult to be precise about the onset of symptoms when there was a slow build-up.
Mandy then took the jury to the prosecution’s closing address, in which Dr Nanette Rogers, SC, described Patterson telling her son she felt sick and had gone to the toilet a couple of times, and the boy telling police his mother seemed normal on Sunday morning.
“[He] did not say in evidence before you in the [recorded interview] that his mum was normal,” Mandy said.
The boy had not noticed his mother going to the toilet, Mandy said, but “was this 14-year-old watching her like a hawk this morning?“.
Mandy said Patterson had risked the trip to Tyabb on Sunday to take her son to his flying lesson after taking anti-diarrhoea medication. “Why would she go on this journey to Tyabb? If she was faking feeling unwell, she’d go to bed,” Mandy said.
Mandy referred the jury to the prosecution’s closing address, where Rogers pointed out that Patterson’s son did not recall his mother having to make an emergency toilet stop on the side of the road during the journey. Mandy said that if Patterson had stopped at the BP in Caldermeade to buy food, that’s something her son would recall.
“He did not recall either of them,” the defence barrister said.
Mandy said Patterson had only entered the bathroom at the petrol station for nine seconds to throw away rubbish placed in a bag from her emergency toilet stop.
“Plenty of time to throw the tissues away. No time, we agree, to do anything else,” Mandy said.
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