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Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson will appeal against her convictions, the Victorian supreme court has heard.
Patterson’s barrister, Richard Edney, confirmed she would appeal during a short hearing in Melbourne on Thursday morning.
On 8 September, Patterson was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 33 years for the murders of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.
Edney has recently replaced Colin Mandy, who represented Patterson at trial. It is not uncommon for such changes to be made before an appeal.
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Patterson, 51, was granted an application to vary a suppression order in the case by extending the date of expiry to 3 November.
This would allow her to lodge her appeal under new guidelines being trialled by the supreme court which have doubled the maximum period in which an appeal application can be filed.
The suppression order either expires on 3 November or at the end of Patterson’s appeal.
In granting the amendment, Justice Christopher Beale noted the court of appeal was “routinely” granting such appeal applications. Beale previously said in another hearing after Patterson was convicted that, in his view, it was unlikely any appeal would succeed.
Thursday’s hearing was over in three minutes, with Patterson watching via video link from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a women’s prison in Melbourne’s outer west.
The informant in the case, Det Leading Sen Const Stephen Eppingstall, was in court for the hearing, but no members of the Patterson or Wilkinson families were present.
Patterson was convicted in July after an 11-week trial in Morwell.
She maintained her innocence during the trial, claiming that she had not meant to serve beef wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms to her lunch guests in July 2023.
In sentencing, Beale said the aggravating circumstances of her offending were the substantial premeditation; her pitiless behaviour after the lunch; the suffering of her victims and those who knew them; and her elaborate cover-up.
“Finally, and most importantly, your offending involved an enormous betrayal of trust,” Beale said at the 8 September hearing.
“Your victims were all your relatives by marriage. More than that, they had all been good to you and your children over many years, as you acknowledged in your testimony.
“Not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson’s health, thereby devastating the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents.”
