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Erin Patterson was “extremely aggressive” during a financial dispute with her estranged husband about their children, a Victorian court has heard, as more message exchanges between the former couple were revealed.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha in South Gippsland in 2023.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to murdering or attempting to murder the relatives of her estranged husband, Simon Patterson.
She is accused of murdering Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, and attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson, Simon’s uncle and Heather’s husband.
On Friday, Simon gave evidence for a second day in the trial, under cross-examination from Patterson’s lawyer, Colin Mandy SC. The supreme court is sitting in Morwell.
His evidence largely centred on a series of exchanges with Patterson over text, either using SMS or the messaging app Signal.
Simon was also asked about phone conversations he had with Patterson in the days immediately after the deadly lunch.
One of the conversations, which Simon said he had a “pretty fuzzy” memory of, involved a discussion about how Patterson was feeling.
She was hospitalised after the lunch, but the prosecution allege she was not poisoned with death cap mushrooms, like the rest of her lunch guests.
Simon said “it intrigued me that she didn’t actually ask” about the condition of the other guests during the conversation.
Under questioning from Mandy, however, Simon said that it was “quite possible” that Patterson was aware the other guests were unwell, but did not know how badly.
Another message exchange involved two issues: the financial future of their children and how one of their children was going.
Simon said he believed this exchange in December 2022 occurred before child support authorities calculated that he only had to pay Patterson $38 a month, an amount he agreed was inadequate.
Patterson contacted Simon’s parents about the financial issue and made comments in another group chat, Simon said.
He agreed with Mandy that it had clearly become “emotive” and both of them were frustrated and wanted to resolve it.
“Yeah I can remember a couple of very inflammatory messages to Mum and Dad, and to the group that I was in about that,” Simon told the court.
He agreed with Mandy it had descended into pettiness and that he had sought the assistance of a mediator.
“It wasn’t working … From my point of view, Erin was being extremely aggressive.”
Mandy sought instead to characterise her feelings as being upset.
The arrangement of a pub lunch for Gail’s 70th birthday marked another flashpoint in the relationship.
Messages shown to the court from October 2022 show Patterson becoming upset at what she felt was her being invited as an “afterthought”.
Simon responded that it was “ridiculous” for Patterson to suggest his father had been lying when he said he thought he had invited her days earlier to the lunch.
“I feel very very hurt about that, and your response is to say you’re being ridiculous,” Patterson responded.
She eventually attended the lunch with the two children.
Many of the messages were routine conversations about parenting arrangements or the operation of the live feed for the Sunday service at Korumburra Baptist church, where Ian Wilkinson was the pastor.
The court heard Simon frequently handled the logistics of the live feed from inside the church, while Patterson assisted on a fortnightly basis with ensuring the feed was properly operating online.
Justice Christopher Beale told the jury to rest up over the weekend and ignore anyone who tried to speak with them about the case, which had received “extensive media coverage”.
“You have to shut that conversation down,” he said. “You have to tell them: ‘I can’t talk about it’.”
Simon’s evidence is set to continue on Monday.
