Erin Patterson told online friends she was ‘hiding powdered mushrooms in everything’, court hears: Trial day five, as it happened

That concludes the evidence for today. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale has dismissed the jury for the day. Here’s a wrap of what happened today:

• During his final day in the stand, Simon Patterson denied he accused Erin Patterson of poisoning at the hospital following the fatal meal.
• Simon also told the court he was puzzled by the beef Wellington lunch invitation.
• The jury was also shown messages between the pair, including some that Simon had described as inflammatory and extremely aggressive.
• The court heard from three online friends of Erin Patterson, Christine Hunt, Daniela Barkley and Jenny Hay - who knew her through a true crime Facebook group.
• One of the witnesses said Erin described Simon as “controlling” and “coercive” on several occasions.
• The court also heard that Erin told her online friends she was “hiding powdered mushrooms in everything”.

The trial will continue tomorrow.

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Jenny Hay, a semi-retired social worker, is the next witness and will be the last to give evidence today. She also met Erin Patterson through the Keli Lane true crime group on Facebook.

Hay said she was part of a smaller group that included Erin.

Witness Jenny Hay.

“We did talk a lot about recipes and things that we liked, but around February or March 2023, Erin had bought a dehydrator, and she was particularly keen to be using it to dehydrate mushrooms,” Hay said.

“I remember her making mushroom soup. I remember her talking about blitzing it to make powder, to put in things so that the kids would eat it.”

Hay, who never met Erin in person, said she seemed to use mushrooms a lot, but never discussed foraging for fungi.

She told the jury that on the Monday after the fatal lunch, Erin emailed her and asked Hay to call her. The pair spoke on the phone.

Hay said that during that conversation, Erin said the mushrooms had come from an Asian grocery store and her children had eaten some of the meal.

“She said she was sick [and she was] in hospital,” Hay said.

In his cross-examination, defence counsel Colin Mandy, SC, asks Hay about Erin’s request for advice about cooking a beef Wellington.

“I remember her saying, ‘How do I make sure that it’s not soggy?’” Hay said.

“And I said, ‘Just make sure you wrap the pastry as close to putting it in the oven as possible, and that will help stop it being soggy’. I mean, I’ve only ever made it once or twice, but that’s what I remembered.”

Hay has now finished her evidence.

Defence counsel Colin Mandy, SC, has started his cross-examination of Daniela Barkley.

The jury has heard that Erin told members of the Facebook group at various times that she loved mushrooms.

“I always knew that about her,” Barkley said.

Erin also reported, reluctantly, that she had been to Simon’s house to clean it, Barkley said.

Barkley has now finished her evidence.

Daniela Barkley told the court that cooking was one of the main topics of conversation among the Facebook group.

Erin Patterson.Credit: Jason South

She said that in mid-July 2023, Erin asked the group whether anyone had previously cooked a beef Wellington and if they had any advice. The fatal lunch was served about two weeks later, on July 29, 2023.

“I just specifically remember the conversation because I didn’t actually know what a beef Wellington was because I’m mostly vegetarian,” Barkley said.

“So I made a joke about it: ‘No, but if I could, I’d make a tofu Wellington’. And everyone just thought that was awful. So we had a good laugh about that.”

Several days after that online conversation, Barkley told the jury, Erin shared a photo of a cut of meat and asked the group whether it was the right one to be used in a beef Wellington.

“We just all assumed that it was for her and the kids,” the witness said.

The jury is being shown screenshots from the Facebook chat group. In one screenshot, Erin posted: “I’ve been hiding powdered mushrooms in everything. Mixed it into chocolate brownies yesterday, the kids had no idea”.

Witness Daniela Barkley, one of the Facebook group members, said Erin posted the message in 2023, some time after she bought a food dehydrator.

Barkley told the court Erin was “a bit excited that she purchased a food dehydrator”.

In another message shown to the jury, Erin wrote: “So fun fact, the dehydrator reduces mushroom mass by 90 per cent. Do you think Woolies would mind if I brought the dehydrator into their vegetable section and dry things before I buy them?”

The jury is also shown a photo of Erin’s dehydrator with mushrooms on the shelves.

“Erin sent it to us,” Barkley told the court.

Barkley is shown photos of chopped up button mushrooms and confirms Erin sent the images to the group chat.

“She was excited,” Barkley said.

Christine Hunt has finished her evidence and the new witness is Daniela Barkley, a stay-at-home mother who runs a couple of businesses from home.

Barkley told the court Erin spoke about Simon in a private chat with five people, where she described how sad she felt and the difficulties she had getting along with him.

She said Erin spoke about how Simon favoured one of their children over the other.

Simon Patterson outside court on Monday.Credit: Jason South

“She was quite happy with him wanting to be regularly involved [in the children’s lives], but I think it had more to do with just his cleanliness and things like that,” Barkley said.

“She didn’t want the kids to sleep over there at night because she wasn’t happy with the way he lived.”

Barkley recalled being told by Erin about a time the power went out while Simon was looking after the children.

“She was very, very upset because he’d left, he had the kids, and he just left them at home and told them that they weren’t allowed to open up the fridge to eat any of the food because it would stop being so cold ... and instead, he went to the church to set up whatever he did there,” the witness said.

Defence barrister Colin Mandy, SC, has begun cross-examining Christine Hunt, and asks about the smaller, splinter group that emerged from the initial Keli Lane true crime group.

Colin Mandy, SC.Credit: Jason South

“It was very social but still discussed societal matters,” Hunt said of the smaller group.

Hunt said Erin posted photos and videos of her children to the group. Erin’s life, Hunt told the court, appeared to revolve around her being a mother, and she came across as attentive. Although Hunt never met Erin in person, she said she regarded her relationship with Erin to be good.

She told the jury Erin had described Simon as “controlling” and “coercive” on several occasions.

“They are the two words that I really do recall strongly that were used repeatedly,” she said.

Asked by Mandy whether Erin held religious beliefs, Hunt said the accused woman was “two-sided” about it.

“She went to church, is the impression I got, because of the family situation. But she was saying to us, publicly in that group, that she didn’t necessarily believe in God,” Hunt said.

Now that he has finished giving evidence, Simon Patterson has taken a seat in the court with his extended family.

He watched as the new witness Christine Hunt, appearing via video link, said Erin had told the online group that she had grown apart from Simon.

Christine Hunt.

“I understood that she was self-sufficient, although she had some concerns about him paying his share, I guess is how you put it, and that he was very controlling, and she used the word ‘coercive’ at times,” Hunt said.

“And also, that his family were very demanding, and that she was really challenged by their demands and particularly around the kids attending a faith-based education.”

Hunt said Erin felt unsettled whenever her children were away from her. She also said Erin had expressed the challenges she found in Simon’s Baptist background.

“She found that challenging, and in particular the decisions around things like divorce, separation, how the kids should be educated and brought up. She found all that very controlling and demanding,” Hunt said.

Evidence has resumed after lunch and the new witness, Christine Hunt, has told the jury she met Erin Patterson about six years ago through a true crime Facebook group dedicated to information about the trial of Keli Lane.

The group initially had about 2000 members, but it eventually reduced to about 20 or 30 people.

Erin Patterson.Credit: Jason South

Hunt told the jury about how Erin changed her Facebook name three times, from Erin Patterson to “Erin Erin” and later “Erin Erin Erin”.

“It was mostly around current affairs. What was happening in the world? A lot of discussion around royalty, politics, crime and a lot of personal stories. So we got to know each other. It was a small enough group where we really get kind of leaning into each other’s lives and we’re a support for each other,” Hunt said of the group.

Hunt said Erin would often share information about her children, her husband and her life struggles about being a single mother. The witness described Erin as a “super sleuth”.

“She was well regarded. She was a really good researcher. So she in the group, in the earlier times when we would … be focused on true crime, she was well known to be able to research and get information quickly from the internet. So she was a bit of a super sleuth,” Hunt said.

Eventually, the group was dissolved, the court heard, and a group of between seven and 15 members began.

Simon told the jury he remembered feeling puzzled about being invited by Erin to the July 29, 2023 lunch.

“I remember feeling puzzled after she invited me to the lunch that although she’d communicated it was a serious medical issue that was to be talked about, it was going to be weeks later that the conversation was going to happen,” Simon said. “I couldn’t reconcile those two facts.”

Erin Patterson and her estranged husband Simon Patterson.Credit: Jason South

Asked by prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, why he hadn’t contacted Erin after the lunch to find out what the issue was, Simon said he didn’t feel too much urgency. “I figured that’s her news to tell. It’s her timing to tell it,” he said.

Simon also described the two occasions before the fatal lunch that Erin discharged herself from hospital.

The first time was before he and Erin married, he said, when Erin was admitted to hospital with low potassium. Simon said Erin was put on a drip overnight. She discharged herself the next morning, he said, after doctors took several hours to deal with the formalities to discharge her from hospital.

The second occasion, he said, was after their first child was born and Erin was in hospital recovering from a cesarean section. She decided to leave hospital a few days later against medical advice, Simon said.

Simon Patterson has now finished his evidence and has been excused. Justice Christopher Beale has sent the jury to an early lunch break.