Court has wrapped up for the day.

Follow along tomorrow for more updates.

Mandy has taken the court to previous testimony about the examinations conducted on the lunch leftovers.

He notes that mycologist, during her microscopic examination, was not able to identify death cap mushrooms, but only field mushrooms.

The court previously heard death cap mushrooms were detected via toxicology testing.

Mandy notes another test performed by plant virology expert David Lovelock also found no evidence of death cap mushrooms in the meal, but did find a second mushroom species aside from button mushrooms.

Mandy suggests those results indicate the possibility there was a third, unknown mushroom species, in the meal.

The defence’s case is that Patterson used mushrooms from Woolworths, an Asian grocer, and foraged mushrooms, in the beef wellingtons.

Mandy has told the jury toxicologist Dimitri Gerostamoulos noted case studies about death cap poisonings mostly come from research articles from Europe and the United States.

Mandy said Gerostamoulos also gave evidence there is variability in the outcome for those people, depending on factors such as:

• How much poison was in their portion of the meal
• How much they consumed
• How much of the toxin was absorbed by their body
• Their weight
• Their age
• Their toxic response (some people are more resilient to poisons than others)

Mandy said throwing up would reduce the amount of poison Patterson consumed and there was no way to know how the toxins were distributed within the beef wellingtons.

He said Patterson also had the advantage of being younger than her lunch guests.

“That suggests she reacted way better than the others,” Mandy said.

“Some people are grade 1 (in severity) - (like) Erin.

“Others aren’t so.”

Mandy said reports on the onset of symptoms also vary, with some sources suggesting vomiting may begin sooner than six hours.

“She’s younger, she’s heavier, she may have had a better toxic response,” Mandy said.

“The literature into death cap poisoning says that (her not being as ill) is a possible outcome.”

Mandy noted the only report the jury has of the onset of Patterson’s diarrhoea comes from Simon Patterson, who said he “vaguely” remembers her mentioning 4pm or 4.30pm.

Mandy has taken the jury back to Patterson’s claim that she vomited on the afternoon of the lunch.

Patterson told the court, once her guests had left, she binged on an orange cake then made herself bring it back up.

Mandy said if Patterson was lying, she would have told the jury she made herself sick “as soon as the guests left” rather than some time later.

Instead, Mandy said she told the jury she was sick hours after the lunch because “it is true”.

He said Patterson also told the jury she could not distinguish the food items in her vomit because her recollection of those events are “true”.

“If she was lying, she would say ‘I threw up immediately and I could see everything’,” Mandy said.

“She didn’t say that to you.”

Mandy said Patterson was preparing duxelle in the hours leading up to the lunch, at which point she decided to add the dried mushrooms.

Mandy said Patterson, at that point, was taste testing the meal and, thus, tried the dish “before everyone else”.

Mandy said that is why Patterson reported having diarrhoea on Saturday afternoon, hours before the onset of the symptoms for her lunch guests.

Mandy said Patterson’s account that she only ate around half of the beef wellington has remained stable over time.

He said she didn’t tell any medics at the hospital that she only ate half because no one had asked her.

Mandy said if Patterson had told medics she only ate half, the prosecution would now be alleging that was a sign of guilt.

“(You’re) damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” Mandy said.

Mandy has taken the jury to the allegation that Patterson cooked five poisoned beef wellingtons and one non-poisoned serve.

Mandy said Ian Wilkinson told the court he saw the beef wellingtons come out of the oven.

“If that was the case, it would be very important to make sure that when these parcels are in the oven on the tray, to ensure you know which one wasn’t poisonous,” Mandy said.

“You don’t want to get it mixed up (with the others).

“We submit to you there is only one logical way of getting around this problem - which is to mark the unpoisoned one in some way so you can recognise it from the others, in which case, you would not need different coloured plates.

Mandy said the plate colour testimony was a “graphic piece of evidence”, but when the evidence is considered collectively, Ian Wilkinson’s testimony has to be wrong.

Ian Wilkinson told the court the four lunch guests ate from grey plates, while Patterson ate from a smaller, orange-tan plate.

Mandy said Patterson and her children both gave evidence there were no grey plates in the house, with the teenage boy telling detectives in August 2023 they had ‘plain white’ dinner plates.

Mandy suggested Wilkinson was confused about the orange-tan plate as no members of Patterson’s household recalled its existence.

“There is no evidence of any grey plates. And Heather’s first reaction was to ask if Erin was short of crockery, because of the different plate. And Simon’s response was ‘she is’,” Mandy said.

Mandy said Patterson plated the lunch up in front of her guests and they were free to pick their plate “without being told”.

Mandy said Patterson did not hold back any of the plates and, once her guests had taken the four other plates to the table, she took the last remaining one from the kitchen bench.

Mandy has told the jury the allegation that Patterson also wanted to kill her estranged husband at the lunch is “absurd”.

Mandy said the ramifications of murdering the father of her children would be too great for both her and her children.

“There’s no possible prospect that Erin wanted in those circumstances to destroy her whole world, her whole life,” Mandy said.

The defence has told the jury they have not been given concrete evidence that Patterson travelled to areas where death cap mushrooms were sighted in autumn 2023.

“We are in a world of total speculation. Speculation on top of speculation,” Mandy said.

“Did she go to Loch?

“You can’t be confident about that.

“Were there enough death cap mushrooms there?

“You can’t be confident enough about that.

“The prosecution says ‘she had all of the death caps she needed by April 28’. If that is the case, why is she (allegedly) looking for more on May 22?”

‘The theory is becoming more complicated.”

“The limitation of his analysis was the fact that he only had EBM data for a handful of days … it’s 23 days out of 500,” Mandy said.

The defence has told the jury any suggestion by the prosecution that Patterson blitzed down the death cap mushrooms “doesn’t make sense”.

“Why would you need to hide mushrooms in a mushroom paste?” Mandy said.

“It doesn’t make any sense.

“So that theory, we submit to you, doesn’t make any sense at all. “

Mandy has taken the jury to testimony given by Ian Wilkinson about the cancer discussions at the lunch

Mandy noted Ian told detectives that he “thought” Patterson had said she had cancer.

“Ian Wilkinson said ‘suspected cancer’ to police,” Mandy said.

“He said her voice went low and he couldn’t quite hear what she was saying.”

Mandy said Ian and Don’s accounts of the conversation slightly differed.

However, he said it was agreed the conversation happened after Patterson and her lunch guests had finished eating their beef wellingtons.

“This conversation happened after the food had been consumed,” Mandy said.

“If this was a ruse, there was no need to have a conversation, because the consumption of the food had already happened.

“There was no need for Erin to say anything at that point.

“The only conclusion that you can draw - and it is not a good thing misleading people about whether you have cancer - is it (the lie) has nothing to do with any intention to harm them.

“Just because of a logical way of analysing the evidence. (There is) no point in telling the story after they had eaten the food.

“She thought they would ‘take it to their graves’ (as put forward by the prosecution) is such an irrational and illogical theory.”