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Erin Patterson is on trial for allegedly poisoning four lunch guests with death cap mushrooms.
She pleaded not guilty, claiming the mushrooms in her beef wellington were not added intentionally.
Three guests died, while a fourth recovered; the trial is expected to last six weeks.
Alleged mushroom poisoner Erin Patterson sent a text saying she was really “disappointed” that her now estranged husband wouldn’t be attending her lunch after she had spent a “small fortune” on the “special meal”, a court heard.
The mother-of-two has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, arguing at trial the presence of poisonous mushrooms in her beef wellington dish was not intentional.
Giving evidence, Simon Patterson was questioned by Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC on when he was invited to the July 29 lunch at Patterson’s home. He said it was after a service at the Korumburra Baptist Church, when she invited him, his parents and his aunt and uncle.
“It’s important for me that you’re all there … I hope you change your mind.”
Patterson allegedly said she’d spent a “small fortune” on steaks and wanted it to be a “special meal”.
Simon Patterson was called to give evidence as the first witness of the trial when the matter returned before the Supreme Court on Morwell today.
Entering the courtroom shortly before 11am, he did not look at Patterson as he walked to the witness box, less than 10m from where she is sitting in the dock at the rear of the court.
Instead the civil engineer glanced around at the faces of the packed courtroom.
He told the jury he was still married to Patterson and said she was “very intelligent”, having studied in a number of courses, including business, vet sciences, legal studies, science and was qualified as an air traffic controller.
“Some of the things that attracted me to her in the first place was her intelligence, she’s quite witty and can be quite funny,” he said.
Simon Patterson said after the pair married in June 2007 they set off on a road trip around Australia before settling in Western Australia, where their son was born in Perth in January 2009.
He told the court they’d separated and reconciled a number of times before the relationship ended in 2015.
“It was strained, there was tension in it,” he said.
“I was always keen to have a good relationship, a good marriage and a good strong family to bring the kids up in.”
Simon Patterson agreed his wife had complained the way they communicated was “toxic”.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars lent to Simon Patterson’s family
Under questioning from Patterson’s barrister Colin Mandy SC, Simon Patterson confirmed he and his wife had lent hundreds of thousands of dollars each to his three siblings and their partners to buy homes.
“Erin also assisted your siblings with interest-free, I’ll be careful with that term, loans,” Mandy asked.
“Yes we did loan my siblings money,” Simon Patterson responded.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do that without the money Erin received.”
Simon Patterson said that after speaking with child support, he was advised to stop paying Patterson directly and that all transfers should go through child support.
“That was the first thing that made me feel there was a change in our relationship,” he said.
“The chatty nature of it pretty much stopped ... it became functional and sometimes nothing.”
Husband chokes up discussing father’s illness
Questioned on visiting his parents the first time in hospital following the lunch, Simon Patterson choked up and blew his nose with a tissue.
His voice breaking, he told the jury “Dad was substantially worse than Mum” in the room they shared.
“He was lying on his side, he was hunched – quite noticeably,” he said.
Later that day Simon Patterson said he received a second call when Patterson said she’d visited Leongatha Hospital but had checked herself out against medical advice.
He told the jury she mentioned that staff wanted to assess their two children after she informed them they’d eaten leftovers from the meal on the Sunday night.
“I’d been saying I was happy to pick up the kids ... She didn’t want the kids to be scared about the reason so she should be the one to pick them up,” he said.
“I said ‘I’m glad you feel healthy enough to pick up the kids now’ because at 7am she wasn’t healthy enough to drive herself.”
Earlier, prosecutor Sarah Lenthall took the 15-member jury through their assigned iPads — used to store exhibits, transcripts and notes throughout the trial.
Delivering her opening remarks to the jury over the course of about three hours on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Rogers said there were “a lot” of witnesses and the prosecution would seek to present the case in a “chronological order”.
“We will do our best to play or call the witnesses in a rough chronological order but sometimes this isn’t always possible,” she said.
Prosecutors allege Patterson intended to kill the lunch guests attending at her home after inviting them with the “false claim” of a cancer diagnosis.
Heather Wilkinson and pastor Ian Wilkinson. Photo / Supplied
“It is the prosecution case that the accused deliberately poisoned, with murderous intent, each … after inviting them for lunch on the pretence that she’d been diagnosed with cancer and needed advice about how to break it to the children,” she said.
“It is the prosecution case that the accused used the false claim that she had serious medical issues to ensure and to explain why the children would not be present at the lunch on July 29.”
Her husband Simon Patterson’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died in hospital in the weeks after the gathering.
Heather Wilkinson’s husband, Korumburra Baptist Church pastor Ian Wilkinson, fell gravely ill but recovered.
Defence barrister Colin Mandy SC told the jury Patterson did not dispute that the four lunch guests consumed deadly death cap mushrooms at her Leongatha home.
“The defence case is that Erin Patterson did not deliberately serve poisoned food to her guests at that lunch,” he said.
“The defence case is that what happened was a tragedy, a terrible accident.”
The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, is expected to last up to six weeks.
