Mushroom cook’s husband Simon gives evidence on marriage struggles, plate colour, cancer claims: Trial day two, as it happened

What happened on day two of the mushroom trial?

• The first witness for the prosecution, Erin Patterson’s estranged husband Simon Patterson, was called to the stand.

• Simon discussed his marriage to Erin and stated that they had separated for the final time in 2015.
• Simon said they tried to remain amicable, but in 2022, a tax mistake altered their dynamic.
• Text messages between Simon and Erin in the lead-up to the fatal family lunch were shown in court. When Simon said he would no longer attend the lunch, Erin replied, “I’ve spent a small fortune on beef eye fillet.”
• Simon described his movements on the day after the fatal lunch, including his visit to Ian and Heather Wilkinson. Speaking through tears, he said his father, Don, was struggling, lying on his side, unwell in a hospital bed.
• Simon said that Erin had told him she had previously dehydrated mushrooms and mixed different amounts of fungi in a batch of muffins.
• During Simon’s cross-examination, text messages with Erin discussing child support and splitting school fees were shown to the jury.
• Recap the entire second day of the case here.

Evidence has finished for the day, but the trial – and Simon Patterson’s cross-examination – will continue tomorrow.

Simon Patterson leaves court after giving evidence.Credit: Jason South

Until then, try these two podcast episodes to catch up on all the key moments so far.

Erin Pearson, a crime and justice reporter for The Age, has one of the six elusive seats reserved for media inside courtroom 4 of the courthouse in Morwell, where the trial is being held.

Listen to her podcast, Say Grace, here:

Erin Pearson also tells Samantha Selinger-Morris, host of The Morning Edition podcast, what the court was told about why Erin Patterson served the allegedly poisoned meal – and why Erin Patterson didn’t want her children, who ate leftovers, to be seen by doctors.

Listen to the conversation by clicking the player below.

Inside courtroom 4 of the Morwell courthouse, Erin Patterson has placed her glasses on her face and is closely following a trail of text messages as they’re displayed on a screen

Her lawyer Colin Mandy, SC, is showing messages from the Signal messaging app from November 21, 2022, when Erin was discussing with Simon child support and splitting school fees.

Here are some of the text messages that were shown to the jury:

Erin: FYI I put in child support application so that I can also apply for Family Tax Benefit as I said I was going to do a few weeks back. Their procedure is try to contact you by phone or letter, I don’t know which, to confirm basic details, such as, you accept you’re the father of the children and agree we’re separated etc. They asked for a date of separation, it’s kind of moot because the assessment doesn’t begin until the date I applied, which is November 18, but I said September 14 for the sake of having a date, they’ll probably ask you to confirm that, so that our information lines up, just FYI.

Simon: Thanks for the heads-up.”

The jury heard that child support payments were set at about $40 per month. “It was hardly anything,” Simon said.

Until that point, Simon had been paying the fees at the private school the children attended, which were several thousand dollars a year, with some financial assistance from his grandmother.

“Part of it was my grandmother would give us a fair bit of money to all her grandchildren each year,” he told the jury. “And so, we put that to that too, or, I put that towards that as well.”

Mandy: So once that first invoice or payment came to Erin for $40, you appreciated, as did she, that the amount was not going to be anywhere near sufficient to cover things like doctors’ fees, school fees, those kinds of things?

Simon: That’s right, yep.”

The jury heard that created some friction between the pair.

The defence barrister’s cross-examination of Erin Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon Patterson, included a line of questioning involving the accused murderer’s self-esteem.

When Colin Mandy, SC, asked about Erin’s self-esteem, particularly after gaining weight over the years, Simon replied that his wife rarely spoke about the topic.

Erin Patterson.Credit: Jason South

“Erin is not particularly happy with how she is,” Simon said.

“I don’t think she has high self-esteem.”

Defence counsel Colin Mandy, SC, is now asking Simon Patterson about his estranged wife Erin’s crockery at her home in Gibson Street, Leongatha.

Simon Patterson recalled that Erin had a few small uniform sets of crockery.Credit: Jason South

“She had a mixture of plates and it’s not that they’re all different to each other, but she had a bunch of ceramic plates generally that weren’t all the same, but there are a few of the same as each other,” Simon said.

“And then, couple more that was sort of same as each other but different to the first lot, if you know what I mean.”

Mandy: Amongst those plates, there are a number of colourful ones?

Simon: No, there’s only one colourful one.”

Simon Patterson said Erin had a close relationship with his father, Don, and shared with him a love of science and knowledge.

Both Don and his wife Gail were involved grandparents.

Don Patterson.

“Mum and Dad, when the COVID restrictions started, they started a weekly Saturday morning, I think, they call[ed] it a cousins’ chat, or a cousins’ catch-up, where they go online to, like, Zoom ... to all catch up,” Simon told the jury.

Simon grinned and appeared jovial as he recalled how his father often incorporated rockets into time with the grandchildren.

“Dad loved rockets. There were lots of rocket-based activities,” Simon said.

Over the years, the jury heard, Erin attended many lunches at Don and Gail’s house, including wider family gatherings and smaller get-togethers with her children and their grandparents without Simon.

Simon agreed Erin was a devoted mother to their children and was very keen and supportive for them to be involved in different activities.

Twice during his cross-examination, Simon Patterson has been questioned about his estranged wife’s faith.

Earlier today, Colin Mandy, SC, asked Simon about the start of his friendship with Erin, when they both worked for Monash City Council, and about a trip to the Korrumburra Baptist Church with other friends.

Simon Patterson has spent the day providing evidence in his estranged wife’s murder trial. Credit: Jason South

Simon said that when he met Erin, she was an atheist, but she had been moved by the communion part of the service at the church and had to step outside.

In courtroom 4 of the Latrobe Valley justice precinct in Morwell, Simon was just asked about her faith again. “She was influenced by a few factors, including, I guess, my involvement in her life,” Simon told the jury.

“It’s really God’s leading that makes us Christians or not, if that’s what you’re asking. But yeah, she did become a regular church attender.″⁣

She also attended Bible study lessons, he said.

The jury heard that despite separating in 2015, Erin Patterson added Simon’s name to the titles of a home in Lyons Street, Mount Waverley and the land used to build her home in Gibson Street, Leongatha.

Erin purchased the Leongatha land with the money she inherited from her mother in 2019.

Simon said he was “puzzled” by the move. He said he was still hopeful he and Erin might reconcile at the time.

He told the jury he was involved in engaging the designer and builder for the Leongatha home, which he described as “child-friendly”.

Around the time the Leongatha home was being built in early 2021, Simon told the jury, he asked Erin about her intentions for the property.

“It made me wonder about whether she was using me for my expertise and contacts to build her house, or whether she genuinely thought this was, you know, a move towards living together as a family again,” Simon said.

He said that in the same conversation, Simon asked Erin to add his name to the title of another property she owned, in Nason Street, Korumburra.

“She responded by saying she wanted my name off the Gibson Street title and the Lyons Street title, and she would put just my name on the Nason Street title,” Simon said.

Erin Patterson’s defence lawyer Colin Mandy, SC, has started to cross-examine his client’s estranged husband.

Mandy is asking Simon about his relationship with Erin, their shared love of travel and their friendship after they separated in 2015.

Simon Patterson arrives at court on Thursday.Credit: Jason South

Mandy: You agree with the proposition that your friendship remained strong until late 2022?

Simon: Look, it depends. It’s not wrong. Our relationship went up and down over the time.”

The jury heard Simon and Erin Patterson had travelled with their children to South Africa, Botswana, Darwin and South Australia after separating.

Defence counsel Colin Mandy, SC (left).Credit: Jason South

Mandy then pivoted towards questions about the pair’s property decision and the money Erin inherited from her grandmother.

Most of the disbursements from the estate she inherited, the jury heard, were paid into a joint account Erin and Simon had together. They used some of the funds to purchase a home in Quinninup, in Western Australia’s south-west.

They also loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to Simon’s siblings, Matthew, Nathan and Anna, for purposes including to purchase property.

Mandy: And the terms of those loans were that there was no interest paid on them, other than indexation to inflation?

Simon: That’s right.

Mandy: And the other term of those loans was that there was no payment schedule; people were free to pay the loans back when they were ready?

Simon: They were arranged so that there was no there was no legal hold, I guess, to force them to pay the money back. But the arrangements were that ... they’d be paid back at the same kind of amounts that they’d be paying back a mortgage if it were a mortgage.”

Simon said money was not “the most important motivation” to either he or Erin.

Simon Patterson has told the jury that on August 1, 2023, while he, his estranged wife and their children were at Monash Medical Centre, Erin told him she had previously dehydrated mushrooms and mixed different amounts of fungi in a batch of muffins.

Erin made the muffins to do a blind taste test for one of her children who did not like mushrooms, Simon told the court.

Erin Patterson and Simon Patterson.Credit: Jason South

“She found it interesting that [the child] actually preferred the muffin that did have some mushrooms in it,” Simon said.

Simon told the jury it was news to him that Erin dehydrated food. “She didn’t dehydrate food when we lived together,” he said.

This recollection was the final piece of evidence during questioning by prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC. Erin Patterson’s defence lawyer, Colin Mandy, SC, will now have an opportunity to cross-examine Simon.