Key events
Nino Bucci
Erin Patterson can be seen on a video link from the Gordon unit of the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, the state’s women’s prison, wearing a royal blue jumper and staring out a window to her right.
She is on mute, but was asked by court staff whether she could here proceedings in the court and raised her right thumb in the air in response.
Nino Bucci
Ian Wilkinson not at court for appeal decision
We’re still waiting outside the Victorian supreme court room where the appeal decisions will be heard.
Unlike during the appeal hearings themselves in August, there are only a handful of representatives from the victims’ families in court.
Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving victim of the beef wellington lunch, is not at court.
Homicide squad detectives, including Stephen Eppingstall, the informant in the case, are among those waiting for the appeal.
There’s a dozen or so members of the public here too, including some who attended every day of the trial in Morwell.
The appeal decisions will be handed down in the Banco court, the supreme court’s ceremonial court.
Director of public prosecution argued Patterson’s initial sentence inadequate
Nino Bucci
During the hearings, Brendan Kissane KC, the director of public prosecution, appealed against Patterson’s sentence, arguing that it was manifestly inadequate.
He said that even though Patterson would be aged in her 80s by the time she was eligible for parole, her sentence was still too lenient.
When asked whether a longer non-parole period would essentially damn Patterson to dying behind bars, and had “some artifice of it being life with life”, Kissane told the court:
It has its harsh aspect to it, of course, we accept that.
But in our submission that is not a matter that is outweighed by the seriousness of the offending.
A note on the proceedings today
The court of appeal is due to make its decision at 10am today. Our reporter, Nino Bucci, will be there and we’ll bring you updates as soon as they happen.
It could be a very quick ruling and over in a matter of minutes.
Patterson is not expected to attend the appeal decision in person.
Patterson’s lawyers argued seven grounds for appeal
Nino Bucci
In August, the court heard Erin Patterson should have been given no possibility of ever being released from prison, or a non-parole period so lengthy that she was likely to die behind bars.
Her lawyers argued seven grounds for her appeal, including that allowing jurors to stay in the same hotel as police and the prosecution while they deliberated over their verdicts in the triple murder trial represented a “catastrophic” failure of the justice system.
Nino Bucci
Patterson sentenced last year
Erin Patterson, 52, was last year sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 33 years, for the murders of her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, after she hosted them for lunch.
Patterson was also convicted of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived the beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms after spending weeks in hospital.
Welcome
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Erin Patterson’s bid for a retrial.
Patterson is set to find out if she could face a longer prison sentence or a new trial this morning, as Victoria’s highest court hands down its decision on two appeals regarding her triple murder case.
The court of appeal is set to rule on the two appeals from 10am, after justices Lesley Taylor, Stephen McLeish and Peter Kidd heard arguments from her legal team and prosecutors in August.
