Australian convicted assassin Erin Patterson alleges a “substantial miscarriage of justice” occurred when she was convicted of killing three folks with poisonous mushrooms, court docket paperwork made public on Wednesday confirmed.
Patterson, 51, was handed life in jail with parole this 12 months for serving a beef Wellington laced with toxic fungi to her estranged husband’s dad and mom, aunt and uncle throughout a lunch at her dwelling in 2023, killing three of them.
Native media, together with nationwide broadcaster ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald, reported Monday that Patterson’s bid to attraction her responsible verdicts had been lodged and accepted by the Courtroom of Enchantment.
MARTIN KEEP / AFP by way of Getty Photographs
The state of Victoria’s Courtroom of Enchantment stated Wednesday, nonetheless, that whereas her attraction had been lodged, it had not but been accepted.
In a doc outlining the grounds for her attraction, Patterson’s lawyer alleged a number of counts of “substantial miscarriage of justice” occurred throughout her trial, which sparked a world media frenzy.
They stated a “basic irregularity” had taken place whereas the jury was sequestered that “fatally undermined the integrity of the verdicts,” with out giving additional particulars.
However native media, citing the court docket, stated the jurors had been put up in the identical lodge as police and prosecutors for many of their deliberations, in keeping with the Reuters information service.
Patterson’s lawyer additionally accused the prosecution of an “unfair and oppressive” cross-examination through the trial.
And her lawyer stated proof submitted and accepted by the decide wasn’t related to her case whereas different proof wasn’t admitted however ought to have been.
She additionally requested that she not be bodily current in court docket ought to an oral listening to into her case go forward.
Patterson was sentenced in September and a decide stated she could be eligible for parole after 33 years.
The prosecution has since appealed what it known as a “manifestly insufficient” sentence.
All through a trial lasting greater than two months, Patterson maintained the beef-and-pastry dish shle served was by chance poisoned with loss of life cap mushrooms — the world’s most deadly fungus.
However a 12-person jury discovered Patterson responsible in July of murdering her husband Simon’s dad and mom, Don and Gail Patterson, in addition to his aunt Heather Wilkinson, at her dwelling in Leongatha, within the state of Victoria.
She was additionally discovered responsible of making an attempt to homicide Ian, Heather’s husband.
In a sufferer affect assertion at Patterson’s sentencing listening to, Ian Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor, stated he solely felt “half-alive” with out her.
