Simon Atkinson
Australia producer

At sentencing last September, Erin Patterson was given a “non-parole period” of 33 years - in other words she could not be considered for release for that time.

The judge, Justice Christoher Beale said the reason for offering any hope of release was the conditions Patterson faced in prison - telling her “at the very least, there is a substantial chance that, for your protection, you will continue to be held in solitary confinement for years to come”.

But the prosecutors say this was “overstated” and amounts to sentencing “on the basis of a speculative prediction”.

There were several reasons why Patterson may see her conditions ease, they wrote, including regular reviews of where she was locked up and that improved staffing levels.

They also argue Patterson’s need for protection in prison was “due solely to the notoriety of her crimes", which will "dissipate with time and a reduction in media interest".

The response from Patterson’s legal team is complex - but in a nutshell say that this is not a grounds for appeal.

This is all going to get talked though in court this afternoon when the appeal turns to Patterson’s sentence.

Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams now deals with ground five of the defence's appeal - that the prosecution's cross-examination of Patterson was "unfair and oppressive".

He says the claim is "thoroughly without substance" as the way Patterson was questioned in court was "careful, thorough, fair and professional".

Patterson's lawyers have said the questions put to her during the trial were repetitive and cherry picked evidence of other witnesses, but McWilliams says these lines of inquiry were not just “permissible”, but “required” and “strongly justified".

He adds that where there's "conflict" between what Patterson claims and the evidence of a witness, it is "incumbent on the prosecution to put that conflict to her so that she can respond to it".

During the trial, Patterson's own lawyers described her as a “pedantic witness", McWilliams says, so it was justified that the prosecutor had to repeatedly re-phrase questions to “receive a responsive answer”.

Simon Atkinson
Australia producer

Appeal hearings are dense and technical and we're hearing a lot of stuff which is quite tangential.

But it's not all dull!

One of the most interesting bits of evidence which was barred from last year’s trial - what became known in court as “the cat post” - has just been mentioned again.

In 2020 Erin Patterson posted a photo of mushrooms in a poisons help Facebook group, the caption saying something like "Help! My cat has eaten one of these mushrooms and has become very sick. Are they poisonous?"

Problem was, Patterson didn't own a cat.

Ultimately trial judge Justice Christopher Beale ruled the post was too old and not directly relevant – barring the prosecutors from using it to argue that Patterson had been investigating different types of poisons.

McWilliams is bringing it up in court today as part of the discussion about whether other photos Patterson had taken of wild mushrooms should have been part of the brief of evidence.

We can't see Erin Patterson - who is watching the proceedings from prison - on the live stream, but those in court can.

Our broadcast partners, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, say she was seen shaking her head and saying "no" as the prosecution discussed her foraging history in court.

They described it as a "rare sign of emotion" from Patterson, who throughout her trial largely sat still and quiet, blinking often but reacting rarely.

Patterson's legal team is arguing, among other things, that the trial judge erred in disallowing photos they say would have supported her claim that she'd long loved foraging for wild mushrooms. Instead, Patterson had to take to the witness box to discuss this evidence, which undermined her right to silence - though the prosecution has said there's absolutely no evidence of this "innocent interest".

Katy Watson
Australia correspondent

If you followed the trial closely last year and now you’re watching the appeal, you’ll notice that Erin Patterson has different barristers representing her.

But actually, she still retains the same solicitors Bill Doogue and Ophelia Holloway – they’re the lawyers who have been working on her case from the beginning. It’s just the people in court who have changed.

So instead of Colin Mandy, an experienced criminal barrister, and Sophie Stafford who were familiar faces in Morwell, it’s now Richard Edney and Veronika Drago.

There are lots of reasons legal representation changes. It could be a timing issue, or a desire for a team specialised in appeal matters, which are more technical, less narrative-led and take a completely different shape to trials.

Edney has extensive experience in the appeal court and according to the Victorian Bar, a group that represents barristers in the state, Veronika Drago works with "matters involving complex expert evidence” - something we saw a lot of in the trial last year.

Image source, Getty Images

Kelly Ng
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

The defence has argued photos of wild mushrooms taken in Patterson's kitchen back in 2020 should have been allowed into the brief of evidence as they could have used it to demonstrate the longstanding "innocent interest" in picking and eating wild mushrooms they say their client had.

Instead, they say she had to take to the witness stand to explain this, undermining her right to silence.

Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams says the judge was right to leave the photos aside as there's no evidence that Patterson ever had an "innocent interest" in picking wild mushrooms let alone eating them.

"Nothing in the images suggested that the mushrooms were being prepared for eating or that they were later eaten."

"One can’t accidentally include poisonous mushrooms in a dish if one doesn’t have a tendency to cook with wild mushrooms - that’s the point," he adds, referring to Patterson's claim she had accidentally included death cap mushrooms in her beef Wellingtons.

He also rattles through the testimonies of Erin Patterson's estranged husband Simon, and the couple's children, who said they'd never gone foraging with their mother as she claimed.

The three people who died in hospital in the days after Patterson’s lunch were Patterson's in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Heather's husband, local pastor Ian Wilkinson, recovered after weeks in an induced coma and still has ongoing health issues related to the poisoning.

Simon Patterson, Erin's estranged husband with whom she has two children, had been invited to the lunch too, but pulled out the day before.

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

You can find a recap of all the twists and turns of last year's trial here.

Over nine weeks, the jury heard evidence suggesting Erin Patterson had foraged death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns and lured her victims to the fatal meal under the false pretence that she had cancer - before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence.

Some key bits of evidence included:

• The orange plate: Survivor Ian Wilkinson recounted watching food go onto four grey plates - and an orange one for Erin. "I've puzzled about it since lunch," his wife had said, according to a witness. "Is Erin short of crockery?"
• An orange cake: Detailing the lunch publicly for the first time from the witness stand, Erin offered an explanation: a secret struggle with bulimia. She said she had been regularly binge-eating and purging since her teens - something her defence team suggested accounted for her lack of symptoms
• Red flags: As her victims suffered in hospital, Erin was covering her tracks, prosecutors alleged. The day after she was discharged from hospital, CCTV captured Erin travelling to a local dump and disposing of a food dehydrator later found to contain traces of poisonous mushrooms. She was also using three phones around the time of the lunch, two of which disappeared shortly afterwards. The one she did hand over to police had been repeatedly wiped.

Simon Atkinson
Australia producer

Prosecutors are up in court this morning explaining their case, but we also have their written submissions to the judges.

They used 70 pages to rebut Erin Patterson’s lawyers arguments for why her conviction should be overturned.

But perhaps the punchiest paragraph is saved for the very end.

In it, they argue that it was “inevitable” Patterson would be found guilty - the subtext being that whatever holes her lawyers try to pick and legal arguments they try to make, the evidence which put her behind bars was “extraordinarily strong”.

“Once it was conceded that the applicant had prepared and served a poisonous meal to the lunch guests, the only live issue before the jury was whether the prosecution had excluded the reasonable possibility of culinary misadventure,” they wrote.

“The circumstances surrounding the lunch invitation, the serving of the applicant's meal on a different plate, the entirely different medical outcomes for the applicant as compared to the lunch guests, combined with the extensive array of incriminating conduct, pointed overwhelmingly to a deliberate act of poisoning. In all the circumstances, guilty verdicts were inescapable.”

Katy Watson
Australia correspondent

Day two of the appeal and it’s being live-streamed again with two shots: one focused on the three appeal judges and the other facing the court - which doesn’t look as busy as it did yesterday.

Erin Patterson’s tuning in to the hearing via video link so she’s not in court herself, but the lead investigator Stephen Eppingstall is once again sitting on the wooden benches behind both legal teams.

We can’t see Ian Wilkinson, the sole survivor of the lunch who was in court yesterday and attended much of last year’s trial. But there are other members of the victims’ families who are now familiar faces.

The crown prosecutors are up first, continuing to rebut the claims made by Patterson’s lawyers yesterday.

Stay with us as we bring you the latest updates.

Patterson’s legal team say she did not receive a fair trial.

There were bits of evidence the jurors should never have seen, her lawyers argue, and others from their own case which they were barred from including in the way they wanted.

The defence also say the prosecution was inconsistent on their evidence about a motive, and that the five days of cross-examination of their client was “unfair and oppressive”.

And finally, they say a “fundamental irregularity” occurred while the jury were deliberating which “fatally undermined” the integrity of the verdicts.

The jurors were supposed to be isolated, but accommodation shortages meant they shared a hotel with members of the prosecution, a key police witness, and journalists - though there’s no evidence they interacted with them.

Justice Stephen McLeish, Justice Lesley Taylor and Justice Peter Kidd are the judges hearing the case in Melbourne.

As appeal court judges, they had no involvement with the trial in Morwell last year.

It'll be up to them to decide whether or not the appeals by both Erin Patterson and the public prosecutor are successful.

If they do not all agree on the decision, the case will be decided by a majority vote (two to one). And so the opinion of the two agreeing judges becomes the final order of the court.

BBC's Australia correspondent Katy Watson runs through what happened during yesterday's appeal hearing - and what will happen today.

Lana Lam
BBC News, Sydney

Welcome to day two of Erin Patterson’s appeal hearing, where the triple murderer is seeking to have her convictions overturned.

Yesterday, Patterson’s lawyers detailed why they believe the trial was a miscarriage of justice, pointing to issues with the jury during deliberations and questions over evidence that was and wasn’t allowed - and in what way.

The prosecution responded to some of those claims and will continue doing so today, before they move onto their own appeal against Patterson’s sentence. She received three life terms - to be served concurrently - but is eligible for parole after 33 years which prosecutors claim is not harsh enough.

The hearing will start at 10:15 am local time so stay with us as we bring you the latest lines.

The first day of Erin Patterson's appeal hearing has ended. Here's what you need to know:

• Patterson was sentenced to life in prison last year for murdering several relatives with deadly mushrooms concealed in a beef Wellington lunch
• Her lawyers are appealing her sentence, arguing that there was a "substantial miscarriage of justice" at her trial
• The jury accidentally stayed at the same hotel as prosecutors and a key police witness - which Patterson's lawyers today said was "catastrophic" to the integrity of the trial. But prosecutors pushed back against this claim, saying there was no evidence of interaction between the jurors and those guests
• Here's a summary of the key arguments made today, and how they went down with the appeals court judges
• Patterson attended the hearing via video link from a maximum security prison
• Also in court was Ian Wilkinson, the sole survivor of the fateful mushroom lunch
• The prosecution is mounting its own appeal, arguing that Patterson should not be eligible for parole. Her current sentence allows for parole after 33 years

We're wrapping up our live coverage now, but you can read our news story for more on the hearing today.

Justice Stephen McLeish, Justice Lesley Taylor and Justice Peter Kidd are the judges hearing this case in Melbourne.

As appeal court judges, they had no involvement with the trial in Morwell last year.

It'll be up to them to decide whether or not the appeals by both Erin Patterson and the public prosecutor are successful.

If they do not all agree on the decision, the case will be decided by a majority vote (two to one). And so the opinion of the two agreeing judges becomes the final order of the court.

We haven't heard from Erin Patterson during this hearing - and we won't.

But she gave evidence at her trial, and footage of her police interview in the days after the fatal lunch has also been made public.

Simon Atkinson
Australia producer

We expect the three appeal court judges will not make a decision immediately.

This is called a reserved decision and can take many weeks.

If Patterson’s appeal is successful, her convictions and sentence would be overturned, and she’d likely face a retrial. She could also apply for bail.

That is what happened last year in Victoria, in the case of Greg Lynn, a pilot who had his conviction for the murder of an elderly camper overturned on appeal.

Far more appeals fail than succeed. The threshold for the appeal court to throw out a jury’s decision is high, even if appeal judges conclude the prosecution was not perfect.

If Patterson loses, she could apply for “special leave to appeal” to Australia’s High Court - though that is rarely granted - and would have 28 days to do that.

Katy Watson
Australia correspondent

Without doubt, this is the story I am most asked about in all my years of reporting.

Family, friends and colleagues are keen to know what it was like in court, how Erin Patterson seemed as she gave evidence – but most of all, why would she have done it?

Her motive was always in question – in fact, the prosecution argued right from the start that a motive wasn’t necessary to prove she was guilty of murder. But the mystery over her reasons for killing three relatives is partly why this trial drew so much attention.

An average family, having an average family lunch that ended in such tragedy.

Image source, Getty Images