Summary
Here’s a recap of what the jury heard today:
1. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC told the jury Erin Patterson “targeted her search” for death cap mushrooms to poison the beef wellingtons she served her lunch guests on 29 July 2023.
2. Patterson cannot be accepted as a truthful and trustworthy witness, Rogers said. In the final moments of her closing address, she said if the jury combines all the evidence in the trial they will be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the beef wellingtons she served her guests.
3. Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, said the prosecution had a “flawed approach” in analysing the evidence and “discarded inconvenient truths”. He told the jury to consider whether there is a reasonable possibility that death cap mushrooms were put into the beef wellingtons accidentally. He said jurors should also consider whether there is a reasonable possibility that Patterson did not intend to kill or cause serious injury to her guests.
4. Mandy said his client had no motive and “very good reasons” not to harm her lunch guests. “If you do embark on this plan … you’ll lose the only people in the world who are any support to you and your children, you will lose your children and you will lose everything that’s important to you,” he said.
5. Mandy said that while Patterson had a right to silence and was under no obligation to testify in the trial she chose to give evidence in the trial. In doing so, he said, she opened herself up to days of cross-examination by an experienced barrister and the “scrutiny of the whole world”.
Updated
The court has adjourned a little earlier than usual for the day.
Mandy’s closing address will resume from 10.30am tomorrow.
