By STEFAN BRADLEY
AS expected, the Gippsland woman behind the Leongatha mushroom poisonings has officially filed an application to appeal against her conviction, which she said should be “quashed” and a re-trial ordered.
In her application, dated November 3, 2025, to the Court of Appeal, convicted triple murderer and Dame Phyllis Frost Centre prisoner, Erin Patterson outlined her grounds for leave to appeal.
Patterson said a “fundamental irregularity occurred” while the jury was sequestered to consider their verdict. It has been reported since the guilty verdict that police and media were staying at the same hotel as the jury.
She also argued about the relevant value of phone tower evidence and death cap mushroom sightings in the towns of Loch and Outtrim listed on the iNaturalist website; and also of the relevance of the “Facebook evidence” from her Facebook messages and Facebook friends. She said all this evidence should have been excluded from the trial and that “the admission of that evidence occasioned a substantial miscarriage of justice.”
Patterson claims Justice Christopher Beale “erred” by not allowing images and videos “related to mushrooms and found on an SD card at the application’s home was inadmissible”.
Taking aim at prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers, Patterson said “unfair and oppressive cross-examination of (Patterson)” and Dr Rogers’ closing address caused a substantial miscarriage of justice.
The notice ends focusing on the prosecution’s putting a case for the accused’s motive.
“A substantial miscarriage of justice occurred because despite opening the case for the prosecution on the basis that there was no evidence of motive the prosecution in its closing address changed its case by implying that there was, in fact, a motive for murder,” the notice reads.
The Supreme Court trial was held at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell and attracted unprecedented media coverage.
Patterson is serving a life sentence with a 33-year non-parole period, including time served for murdering her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, and Heather Wilkinson, and for the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. Including time served, she will be 82-years-old if she’s released in 2056.
The prosecution has already filed an appeal against Patterson’s sentence on the grounds the punishment was not harsh enough. Patterson was spared the harshest penalty of a life sentence with no parole, with Justice Beale citing the harsh prison conditions she is currently enduring as such an infamous prisoner.
But prosecutors claim Justice Beale “erred” during sentencing and that Patterson’s punishment was “manifestly inadequate”, and that it was “inappropriate” to fix a non-parole period.
