Australia mushroom trial live: judge’s charge to Erin Patterson jury continues on day 37

Expert’s evidence on tablet images and factory resets

Fox-Henry also extracted thumbnails of images from a Samsung tablet.

The images extracted from the tablet included a photo of mushrooms on electronic scales and a screenshot of a text message about ovarian cancer, Beale says.

Beale says Fox-Henry also gave evidence about factory resets performed on one of Patterson’s mobile phones - Phone B.

Fox-Henry said one of the resets was performed remotely.

Judge outlines computer expert’s evidence

Beale tells the jury Fox-Henry testified that he extracted data from a Cooler Master computer seized from Patterson’s house.

He said he used keywords to search the data. These included “death cap”, death cap mushrooms”, “mushroom” and “poison.”

The court previously heard that electronic records taken from a computer seized by police from Patterson’s house indicated that it had been used to visit webpages listing sightings of death cap mushrooms.

Patterson said it was “possible” the visits to the iNaturalist were done by her but that she could not remember it, Beale says.

She said she wanted to know if death cap mushrooms grew in South Gippsland, the court hears.

Justice Christopher Beale begins to outline the evidence of digital forensics expert Shamen Fox-Henry, from Victoria police’s cybercrime unit.

He reminds the jury that Fox-Henry gave evidence about the data found on several devices police seized from Patterson’s house a week after the beef wellington lunch.

The jury has entered the court room in Morwell.

The jury will enter the court room from 2.15pm.

Justice Christopher Beale will continue delivering his charge to jurors.

We’ll bring you live updates when the trial resumes.

We’re waiting for the jury to enter the court room in Morwell.

In the meantime, here’s how the trial played out last week during closing submissions:

Our justice and courts reporter, Nino Bucci, was in Morwell yesterday and filed this story on what Beale told the jury:

Here’s a recap of what the jury heard on Tuesday:

1. Justice Christopher Beale began delivering his instructions, or charge, to the jury before it retires to consider its verdict later this week. He said the jurors were the “judges of the facts” in the case.

2. The jury should cast aside prejudices and sympathies while deliberating the verdict, Beale said. “The fact Patterson told lies must not cause you to be prejudiced against her,” he said.

3. Beale said Patterson’s trial had garnered “unprecedented media attention” and a lot of public comment. “If any of that has reached your eyes or ears or does so in the coming days ... you must be particularly careful not to let it influence you in any way,” he said.

4. If the jury accepts Patterson was of good character they can use it to assess her credibility, Beale said.

5. Beale outlined alleged prior inconsistent statements by witnesses. He said jurors could accept the earlier statement made by a witness or use the earlier statement to assess the reliability of a witness.

Welcome to day 37 of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial.

Justice Christopher Beale will continue instructing the jurors this morning before they begin their deliberations later this week.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha, in regional Victoria, on 29 July 2023.

She is accused of murdering her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, and her estranged husband’s aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The attempted murder charge relates to Heather’s husband, Ian.

She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with “murderous intent”, but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragic accident.