Ian Wilkinson has finished reading his own statement. Now, he places a hand on the back of his daughter, Ruth Dubois.
Ian Wilkinson and his daughter Ruth Dubois in May this year.Credit: Jason South
Like her father, Dubois is facing the judge and not her mother’s killer.
She says on the day of the beef Wellington lunch – July 29, 2023 – four generations of her family were “handed a lifetime of carrying this unimaginable horror”.
She remembered her mother as generous, kind, patient, and with a good sense of humour.
“She truly worked to love others and wanted the best for them. She was good at maintaining relationships. She was quick to forgive and even quicker to apologise and make amends if she thought she’d done something wrong.”
“She was a wonderful example of a mother and one I have continually strived to live up to. Her love as a mother was shown evidently in her words and actions right up until she left us. Her final conversations with us were not about herself. I miss her daily and life feels less bright without her.”
Turning her attention to Erin Patterson, the Wilkinsons’ daughter expressed her anger that the killer had many opportunities to change her plan but did not.
It is difficult to comprehend how someone could spend months planning this out, researching, collecting the items needed, making the lunch invitation, preparing the meal, sit through eating it, and then to carry on with normal life, all while knowing what tremendous harm that was being caused, followed up by the extraordinary lies and the absolute lack of care shown for the victims.
There were multiple times during this process when she could have stopped, she could have cancelled the plans. She could have thought about the consequences, been honest, helped the medical staff, potentially change the outcome, but instead, at every step of the way she chose to follow through.
Ruth said the impact of the crimes was spread through her family, friends, and the wider local community.
I constantly feel a weight of sadness about the wider impacts to the community this crime has caused, and the vast number of people outside our family who have been affected. Some who we’ve never even met, the medical staff who had to witness and care for the victims, the investigators people had to witness in court, shop owners who have had their names and businesses scrutinised, the mushroom growing industry, the health department, taxpayers. The list seems endless, and I’m horrified that our family is even associated, through no choice of our own, with such destructive behaviour towards the community.
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