Jurors in Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial have been told they are “not required to accept the opinions” of experts in the trial because they are the judges of the facts.
Justice Christopher Beale spent a second day giving his final directions to the jury of 14 on Wednesday at the court in Morwell, regional Victoria.
Patterson, 50, is nearing the end of her trial, after she pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder over a toxic beef Wellington lunch containing death cap mushrooms.
Her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, all died in hospital after eating the meal.
The only survivor was Heather’s husband Ian, who was taken to hospital but made a full recovery.
The jury was only brought in for about two hours, because the judge said he and the lawyers needed to discuss matters “in depth”.
Justice Beale went through the evidence of police digital forensics expert Shamen Fox-Henry, who had extracted data from devices seized from Patterson’s home.
This included a Cooler Master PC, Samsung tablet and mobile phone known as “phone B”.
A second phone, known as “phone A” was never recovered.
Justice Beale reminded the jury phone B had been factory reset multiple times in 2023, including once remotely while allegedly sitting inside a police locker in Melbourne.
He discussed evidence found on Patterson’s PC that she had navigated to a science website iNaturalist, which listed the location of death cap mushrooms in Melbourne in May 2022.
Her defence argued she visited the website to confirm there were no death cap mushroom postings for South Gippsland at that time, Justice Beale said.
He noted there was no computer evidence Patterson had accessed posts on death cap mushroom sightings in April or May of 2023, when the prosecution allege she visited sites in Loch and Outtrim.
He explained the jury must carefully consider the evidence of witnesses such as Fox-Henry and cell tower expert Dr Matthew Sorrel.
“You are not required to accept the opinions of Dr Sorrel or Mr Fox-Henry, or indeed the expert opinions of the other experts who gave evidence in this case,” the judge said.
“You are the judges of facts in this case.”
He urged the jury to consider the qualifications and objectivity of each expert and whether their evidence was disputed.
Justice Beale outlined about a dozen instances of incriminating conduct alleged by the prosecution, including Patterson’s lies about being unwell after the lunch, owning a dehydrator and foraging for mushrooms.
“The prosecution alleges the accused knew she was guilty of the offences for which she’s charged and engaged in the relevant conduct in an endeavour to conceal her guilty,” he told the jury.
“The defence, on the other hand, argues that there are other reasonable innocent explanations for the alleged conduct relied on by the prosecution.”
The jury was told the judge would not complete his final directions, known as the charge, on Thursday, but “you can live in hope”, which was met with laughter in court.
Once the judge’s charge is completed, the jury will be balloted down to 12 people and sent to deliberate on whether Patterson is guilty or not guilty.
