3 days ago
Erin Patterson says she 'played up the emotion to get support' from Facebook friends
Barrister Colin Mandy SC takes Erin Patterson to another message on 6 December 2022 to her Facebook friends when she wrote “at least I know they’re [Simon’s parents] a lost cause.”
In another message Patterson wrote “I’m sick of this shit” and “so fuck em”.
I did, I wrote that.
Mandy asks why she sent the message.
Patterson sighs and begins to sniff before she answers.
I needed to vent.
She says the alternative was to “go into the paddock and tell the sheep”.
Asked if she meant the words she used, Patterson says “no” as she becomes visibly emotional.
I regret the language I used.
Patterson says she knew her Facebook friends would rally around her.
I probably played up the emotion a bit to get that support.
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Barrister Colin Mandy SC shows the jury messages from 16 December 2022 between Simon and Erin Patterson, while she was on a trip to New Zealand with their children.
Erin says at this point the child support and school fees issue had been sorted.
Erin says that when she returned from New Zealand, she had a good relationship with Simon and his father, Don Patterson.
She recalls attending a Patterson family event with the kids upon their return which was “great”.
Mandy shows the court messages between Erin and Simon on 18 December 2022 where she asks Simon to help because a tree had fallen across a fence at her property and one of her goats was in a neighbour’s yard.
Mandy says the tone in the couple’s messages by 18 December 2022 is conciliatory.
“It is, that’s true,” Patterson replies.
Erin Patterson says she 'played up the emotion to get support' from Facebook friends
Barrister Colin Mandy SC takes Erin Patterson to another message on 6 December 2022 to her Facebook friends when she wrote “at least I know they’re [Simon’s parents] a lost cause.”
In another message Patterson wrote “I’m sick of this shit” and “so fuck em”.
I did, I wrote that.
Mandy asks why she sent the message.
Patterson sighs and begins to sniff before she answers.
I needed to vent.
She says the alternative was to “go into the paddock and tell the sheep”.
Asked if she meant the words she used, Patterson says “no” as she becomes visibly emotional.
I regret the language I used.
Patterson says she knew her Facebook friends would rally around her.
I probably played up the emotion a bit to get that support.
Facebook group chat with friends was a ‘safe venting space’, Erin Patterson tells court
In another message on 5 December 2022, Erin messages a group chat on Signal with her estranged husband Simon Patterson, as well as his parents Don and Gail Patterson.
In one message, she says Don’s suggestion that Simon can change his tax return after he listed himself as single is “mind boggling”.
Barrister Colin Mandy SC then shows messages between Erin and her Facebook friends.
In one on 6 December, Erin says her in-laws told her they could not adjudicate her conversations with Simon.
“This family I swear to fucking god,” Erin wrote.
Mandy asks Erin how she was feeling when she sent this message.
I was really hurt and I was really frustrated and felt a little bit desperate.
Erin says the group Facebook chat was created four years before she sent this message.
She says the group discussed “absolutely everything” including what their children were doing, meals they were cooking and current affairs.
It became a safe venting space for all of us.
Mandy asks how Erin feels about the message now.
I wish I’d never said it.. I feel ashamed for saying it and I wish the family didn’t have to hear that I said that.
They didn’t deserve it.
Erin Patterson says son struggled in ‘a lot of aspects of his life’
Barrister Colin Mandy SC takes Erin to messages exchanged with her estranged husband Simon on 6 December 2022.
In one message, Simon says he understands Erin has invited his parents to her house the prior day to discuss how their son is going and “finances for our kids”.
Erin says she asked Don and Gail Patterson for a discussion because she was “struggling to achieve good communication with Simon about a few things”.
I was wanting or hoping Don and Gail might help mediate that a little bit.
Erin says her in-laws had previously meditated between the couple.
She says her son was struggling in “a lot of aspects of his life”, including school.
Erin also wanted to discuss the school fees for the children.
She says prior to the child support disagreement in late 2022, Simon had been paying their school fees.
After this, Simon wanted her to pay all of the school fees, Erin says.
Erin says when Don and Gail visited on 5 December 2022 they offered to pay the children’s school fees if money was an issue.
“Which wasn’t what I needed,” she says.
She says they encouraged the couple to discuss the issue between them.
They didn’t want to become official mediators.
Erin Patterson recalls first conflict about money with estranged husband Simon
Barrister Colin Mandy SC then asks Patterson about messages between her and Simon in November 2022.
In the messages, previously shown to the court, Patterson tells Simon she has applied for child support payments.
The court previously heard that when Patterson sent Simon an anaesthetist fee for their son the same month, he said he had been advised by the government department overseeing child support payments not to provide money for things like that.
“I understood what he was trying to communicate but I didn’t think what he was saying was right,” Patterson says.
She recalls how she was feeling.
I was hurt.
We’d never had a conflict with money that I could remember before that.
Erin Patterson says estranged husband Simon ‘maybe doesn’t get feelings so well’
Barrister Colin Mandy SC shows the court messages, previously tendered, on the app Signal between Erin and Simon from October 2022.
In the messages, Simon asks Erin if she is attending his mother’s birthday. Erin replies that she was unaware of the birthday event.
Erin tells the court she felt hurt:
I was annoyed with myself because I had forgotten that it was a big birthday coming up for Gail ... I was hurt.
In one message exchange on 14 October 2022, Erin says she is “sorry” for shouting at Simon that afternoon.
Simon replies and apologises for raising his voice. He says he “wouldn’t call what either of us did shouting.”
Asked by Mandy if the interaction was typical for the couple.
Patterson replies:
This is a really good example of how we normally solved it. What happened in this exchange was a typical kind of ... I might feel hurt about something ... Simon maybe doesn’t get feelings so well.. I would feel hurt ... we’d be annoyed at each other for a day or two and then we’d calm down and apologise.
Erin Patterson says she and estranged husband Simon had financial disagreements
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks Patterson about a child support dispute between her and Simon Patterson in late 2022.
Patterson says the topic of child support first came up in October 2022 as she was preparing her tax return.
She says she learned Simon had listed himself as “single” on his tax return form.
Patterson says she was frustrated she had not been told about it earlier when she could have applied for the family tax benefit as a single parent.
From my perspective that was the only annoyance.
Under questioning by Mandy, Patterson agrees the disagreement snowballed into other issues about finances.
Erin Patterson also recalls a “traumatic” health issue where her daughter required a nasogastric tube and was screaming in hospital.
She says her daughter still remembers this.
Colin Mandy SC asks about photographs previously shown to the jury of search history extracted from a computer police seized from Patterson’s house.
He says this shows Patterson was Googling symptoms she thought she had.
“That’s correct,” Patterson says.
Erin Patterson says she was told she was an ‘overly anxious mother’
Patterson says her family’s health history added to her concern about potentially having ovarian cancer.
She touches on the health issues of her daughter with an ovarian mass.
She says her daughter was diagnosed with an ovarian mass when she was eight months old.
Right from when she was born, I thought there was something wrong. She cried a lot but not normal crying.
She says doctors told her she was an “overly anxious mother who should relax”.
Patterson’s voice cracks as she recalls feeling “something” when giving her daughter a massage.
They still dismissed me.
She says doctors said her daughter probably had a “very full bladder”.
She says the experience “considerably damaged my faith in the health system”.
Erin Patterson says she wanted to ‘bring the family back together’
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks his client why at one stage there were three properties in both Erin and Simon Patterson’s name when the couple had been separated for four years.
I always thought we would bring the family back together. That is what I wanted ... It was something tangible to say to Simon, I see a future for us.
Mandy asks Patterson if she has ever been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
I have not.
Mandy asks if Patterson has ever had a needle biopsy on a lump on her elbow.
I’ve never had a needle biopsy anywhere.
Patterson says she was worried about potentially having ovarian cancer.
She says a few years ago her symptoms included feeling “very fatigued”, ongoing abdominal pain and weight gain.
She says at one stage her wedding ring suddenly would not fit and after being resized her “hands had outgrown” it again.
Under questioning by Mandy, Patterson agrees she had been Googling her symptoms.
I consulted Dr Google.
Erin Patterson says in 2023, she helped with the streaming of the live services at the Korumburra Baptist church.
I alternated that with Don.
Patterson says during Covid, Simon and his father, Don Patterson, set up a remote streaming option for the church services.
She says Don was a “coding genius” who “set up the website and made it all happen”.
Within a few months, Don was “struggling” due to wife Gail’s health issues, Patterson says.
She then offered to alternate streaming the live service.
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks if she made any comments to her Facebook friends about religion.
We did talk about it sometimes.
The kind of conversations that we had ... they would gently make fun of the fact that I was religious and I would try and evangelise back to them in a sense ... It was sort of all in good humour.
I do think there were a couple of occasions I might have been unhappy about aspects of organised religion. We talked about that quite a bit.
Patterson says she told her Facebook friends she had been an atheist.
Erin Patterson says she continued to attend church after the couple’s separation
It wasn’t like we must go every Sunday thing.
Patterson says she would still go with her two children.
Patterson says Ian Wilkinson (her estranged husband’s uncle) “wouldn’t get mad if they [the kids] made a noise”.
“Heather would always make a point of coming to talk to me,” she continues.
I saw them sometimes at Christmas gatherings, you know, that side of the family. I probably didn’t get to chat to Ian so much, but Heather would always go out of her way to sit with me and make sure that I had company.
Mandy asks about Patterson’s religious beliefs after the separation.
It remained how it had been since 2005. I was and am a Christian.
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks if Patterson ever told her Facebook friend Christine Hunt, who previously testified, that she was an atheist.
No, I didn’t.
The key figures in the Erin Patterson case
Don and Gail Patterson, Heather and Ian Wilkinson, as well as Simon and Erin Patterson and their two children (who cannot be named for legal reasons).
Colin Mandy SC turns to Erin and Simon Patterson’s relationship
Erin says when they separated permanently in 2015, they wrote down the assets they owned and “divided it down the middle”.
She says no lawyers were involved.
Patterson says at the time the couple owned two properties. She says the couple each took over a remaining loan to Simon’s siblings and their partners.
Patterson reflects on the permanent separation:
In the immediate aftermath ... it was difficult, as it had been in other separations. That only lasted a handful of weeks. We went back to just being really good friends.
I didn’t want to be separated but I felt there was no choice.
Our primary problem was if we had a disagreement or any kind of conflict we didn’t seem to be able to talk about it in a way …
It was just the living together that didn’t work.
Patterson says the family continued to go on holidays together after the separation.
She says they went to Queensland, New Zealand, South Africa and “a lot of time” at her mother’s house in Eden, NSW.
Mandy asks about Patterson’s relationship with Simon’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, after the couple’s permanent separation.
Her voice appears to break as she answers:
It never changed. I was just their daughter in law and they just continued to love me.
Erin Patterson started up a secondhand bookstore in Western Australia
Opened in 2011, she says this involved travelling around the state and collecting books.
Erin says her and her sister were the beneficiaries of their mother’s estate after she died in 2019.
This allowed her to buy a home in Mount Waverley and Leongatha, she says.
Mandy turns to Erin and her estranged husband Simon Patterson’s decision to move back to Victoria from Western Australia in 2013.
Erin says the couple chose to come back to Victoria to allow her son to be close to his cousins and his grandparents, Don and Gail Patterson.
She says the family stayed with Don and Gail for a “good six weeks” when they first returned.
It was cramped in that all three of us were in the one room but it didn’t matter because Don and Gail were so welcoming to us and just liked having [our son] there ... It was a really good experience.
Erin and Simon’s daughter was born in 2014.
Patterson’s defence lawyer asks her about her inheritances
She confirms her grandmother died in 2006 and she was one of a large number of beneficiaries.
First distribution of the estate was about February 2007 and the last was towards the end of 2015, Patterson says.
Barrister Colin Mandy SC asks what the money allowed her to do.
“It did allow us to buy a home. When we settled in Western Australia without a mortgage,” she says.
Patterson said the couple helped her estranged husband Simon’s siblings and their partners purchase their homes with loans of around $400,000.
She says the amount and timing of paying the money back was up to them. The loan was subject to inflation but not interest, Patterson says.
The jury has entered the courtroom in Morwell
Erin Patterson is continuing to give evidence in her triple murder trial.
What the jury heard yesterday
While we wait for today’s proceedings to get under way, here’s a recap of what the jury heard on Monday:
Patterson entered the witness box to begin testifying in her triple murder trial. Members of the Patterson and Wilkinson families, including Ian Wilkinson, were in the court.
The accused said in the months prior to the July 2023 lunch she felt her relationship with the Patterson family, particularly her in-laws Don and Gail, had “a bit more distance”. She said from the start of 2023 her relationship with her estranged husband, Simon, was “functional” and the pair communicated mainly about logistical matters.
Patterson had a “never-ending battle of low self-esteem” for most of her adult life, she told the court. She said around the time of the lunch she was planning to have gastric bypass surgery for weight loss.
Defence lawyer Colin Mandy SC asked his client about the tension in her relationship with Simon, which involved multiple separations between 2009 and 2015. She said the pair “just couldn’t communicate well” when they had a disagreement. “We would just feel hurt,” she said.
The prosecution closed its case on Monday afternoon before Patterson entered the witness box.
Welcome
Welcome to day 25 of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial.
Patterson, who began testifying on Monday, is expected to continue giving evidence.
We’re expecting the trial to resume from 10.30am once the jurors enter the courtroom in Morwell.
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 regional Victoria, on 29 July 2023.
She is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and her estranged husband’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The attempted murder charge relates to Heather’s husband, Ian.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with “murderous intent”, but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragic accident.
