Erin Patterson prepares for mushroom murders appeal ruling to learn if she could face retrial or longer jail term

Victorian court to hand down decision on Friday on two appeals regarding Patterson’s triple murder case

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Erin Patterson is set to find out if she could face a longer prison sentence or a new trial, 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 on Friday, after justices Lesley Taylor, Stephen McLeish and Peter Kidd heard arguments from her legal team and prosecutors in August.

Patterson, 52, is not expected to attend the appeal decision in person.

She 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.

She has appealed against her convictions, while the director of public prosecutions appealed against Patterson’s sentence, arguing that it was manifestly inadequate.

In August, the court heard 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.

Richard Edney, for Patterson, said the failure to properly separate the jury during their deliberations was a fundamental irregularity that had denied her a fair trial.

“What we say has occurred here in the applicant’s trial was an inexplicable and perhaps still unexplained failure of a process,” Edney told the court in August.

They also argued that the trial judge Christopher Beale erred in ruling that photos and videos related to mushrooms and found on an SD card in Patterson’s home was inadmissible, as it tended to support her evidence that she foraged for mushrooms.

During the hearings, Brendan Kissane KC, the DPP, 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.”

There are several possible outcomes to Patterson’s appeal: leave to appeal is not granted; leave to appeal is granted, but her appeal dismissed; leave to appeal is granted, her appeal upheld and a retrial ordered; or her leave to appeal is granted, the appeal upheld, and acquittal entered.

If either of the final two decisions are handed down, there will be no need to rule on the DPP’s sentence appeal.

If not, either the appeal fails, or it succeeds and Patterson is resentenced by the court of appeal.