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Erin Patterson loses appeal as harsher sentence imposed
Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson, 52, attended the appeal of her triple murder case via video link. Follow live updates. Photograph: Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenMushroom murderer Erin Patterson, 52, attended the appeal of her triple murder case via video link. Follow live updates. Photograph: Getty ImagesKey events30m agoWhat next for Erin Patterson?1h agoErin Patterson fails in her bid for a retrial2h agoDirector of public prosecution argued Patterson’s initial sentence inadequate3h agoPatterson’s lawyers argued seven grounds for appeal3h agoWelcomeView image in fullscreenBrendan Kissane, Victoria’s director of public prosecutions. Photograph: Martin Keep/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenNathan Patterson leaves the supreme court of Victoria in Melbourne. Photograph: Jay Kogler/AAPPatterson now must apply to the high court for leave to appeal should she wish to continue fighting her conviction or new sentence.
She is one of only a handful of Victorian offenders sentenced to life without parole, and one of the only women in Australian history to be given the sentence.
When the judges left court, Patterson also stood, took a book from beside her, and walked off-screen.
In court, family members hugged and were emotional, and detectives involved in the case looked elated. Nobody commented outside court.
Patterson showed no emotion on the video feed as McLeish outlined why her appeal had failed, and how the director of public prosecutions had succeeded in seeking a longer sentence.
Patterson’s actions mean it is ‘inappropriate’ to fix non-parole period, justice says
McLeish said the court had found Patterson’s actions “carefully planned and deliberate”, saying she had engaged in an “elaborate series of deceptions”.
The applicant’s murderous intent dated back to the invitations to lunch, it persisted through the lunch that the poison was administered …
We have concluded that the case involved such calculated criminality that it is inappropriate to fix a non-parole period.
Erin Patterson has lost her bid to overturn her convictions, with the court finding unsuccessful or rejecting all seven grounds her lawyers had argued.
The director of public prosecution has succeeded and Patterson will be resentenced to life without parole. She was sentenced last year to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 33 years.
Justice Stephen McLeish said Patterson’s “offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms”.
Erin Patterson can be seen on a video link from the Gordon unit of the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, the state’s women’s prison, wearing a royal blue jumper and staring out a window to her right.
She is on mute, but was asked by court staff whether she could hear proceedings in the court and raised her right thumb in the air in response.
Ian Wilkinson not at court for appeal decision
We’re still waiting outside the Victorian supreme court room where the appeal decisions will be heard.
Unlike during the appeal hearings themselves in August, there are only a handful of representatives from the victims’ families in court.
Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving victim of the beef wellington lunch, is not at court.
Homicide squad detectives, including Stephen Eppingstall, the informant in the case, are among those waiting for the appeal.
There’s a dozen or so members of the public here too, including some who attended every day of the trial in Morwell.
The appeal decisions will be handed down in the Banco court, the supreme court’s ceremonial court.
During the hearings, Brendan Kissane KC, the director of public prosecution, appealed against Patterson’s sentence, arguing that it was manifestly inadequate.
He said that even though Patterson would be aged in her 80s by the time she was eligible for parole, her sentence was still too lenient.
When asked whether a longer non-parole period would essentially damn Patterson to dying behind bars, and had “some artifice of it being life with life”, Kissane told the court:
It has its harsh aspect to it, of course, we accept that.
But in our submission that is not a matter that is outweighed by the seriousness of the offending.
The court of appeal is due to make its decision at 10am today. Our reporter, Nino Bucci, will be there and we’ll bring you updates as soon as they happen.
It could be a very quick ruling and over in a matter of minutes.
Patterson is not expected to attend the appeal decision in person.
In August, the court heard Erin Patterson should have been given no possibility of ever being released from prison, or a non-parole period so lengthy that she was likely to die behind bars.
Her lawyers argued seven grounds for her appeal, including that allowing jurors to stay in the same hotel as police and the prosecution while they deliberated over their verdicts in the triple murder trial represented a “catastrophic” failure of the justice system.
View image in fullscreenErin Patterson appeared via video link from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in the Victorian Court of Appeal in August. Photograph: Anita Lester/Australian Associated Press (AAP/APPatterson sentenced last year
Erin Patterson, 52, was last year sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 33 years, for the murders of her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, after she hosted them for lunch.
Patterson was also convicted of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived the beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms after spending weeks in hospital.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Erin Patterson’s bid for a retrial.
Patterson is set to find out if she could face a longer prison sentence or a new trial this morning, as Victoria’s highest court hands down its decision on two appeals regarding her triple murder case.
The court of appeal is set to rule on the two appeals from 10am, after justices Lesley Taylor, Stephen McLeish and Peter Kidd heard arguments from her legal team and prosecutors in August.
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