One guest invited to dine at Erin Patterson’s lunch table pulled out the night before as he was “too uncomfortable to attend”.

But when her estranged husband, Simon, was called to give evidence to her murder trial he was unable to say the real reason.

Simon believed Erin had been trying to poison him since 2021.

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Prosecutors dropped all attempted murder charges involving Simon on the first day of trial.

While jurors were told this basic detail, they did not hear about how he claimed he was poisoned and that he had told family about it — including his father Don, who would die from Erin’s cooking.

Simon told pre-trial hearings he believed his estranged wife had tried to poison him four times before the July 2023 beef Wellington lunch.

He informed his father, sister and cousin in 2022, and joked to Erin about the alleged poisonings, many of which happened on camping trips together.

“Erin was trying to poison him with food in meals that she cooked for him, that only Simon was at risk,” his sister Anna Terrington told pre-trial, about what Simon told her.

Simon informed Don about eight months before the toxic mushroom lunch, in November 2022, and said Don suggested he not “tell too many people about that”.

He also told his cousin Tim Patterson, which Simon said was a “turning point”, in September of that year.

Simon claimed he “joked” with Erin before a camping trip that month “she might put something in the food and poison me”.

The day before the fatal meal, his mother Gail had asked him why he wasn’t going to the lunch.

Simon said he explained he didn’t think it would be wise because of “all the things that happened in the recent past with Erin”.

However, he did not tell Gail about the poisonings and said his father helped him “move the conversation on from that question”.

The couple, aged 70, would die in hospital along with Gail’s sister Heather, 66, days after eating the meal Erin cooked.

Simon also told his GP, Christopher Ford, and removed Erin from his medical power of attorney about five months before she served up poisonous beef Wellingtons to his relatives.

“He thought that Erin was trying to poison him,” Dr Ford told pre-trial.

When Simon told Dr Ford his family were in hospital, the day after the lunch, the GP called and alerted his medical colleagues.

Heather and Ian Wilkinson went to the Leongatha Hospital, while Don and Gail Patterson were at Korumburra Hospital.

Dr Ford called Leongatha on-call doctor Chris Webster and said he had received an “unusual” call and two people would be coming to him with food poisoning.

He warned Dr Webster “based on previous events that were going on with some of my patients” it was worth keeping an eye on their electrolytes and to “make sure they’re all OK”.

Dr Ford also tried calling Korumburra Hospital but could not get through, and instead drove there to speak to the on-call doctor.

He told that doctor there was a chance that Don and Gail’s symptoms “would decline” and he worried they might have been deliberately poisoned by Erin, the GP alleged in pre-trial.

Simon claimed the first poisoning happened the night before he and Erin were going camping together at Wilson’s Promontory in November 2021.

He had eaten a penne bolognese made for him by Erin and said he vomited at her home the next morning, as well as on the way to their campsite.

Erin arranged accommodation for them to stay instead of camping, and the next day he said he needed to go to hospital.

“I felt like I was going downhill,” Simon told pre-trial hearings last year, saying he assumed he had gastro.

He was transferred to Monash Hospital where he stayed for five days as a doctor flagged concerns with his kidneys.

The second suspected poisoning of Simon had allegedly happened during a camping trip between May 25 and 27, 2022, where he said Erin had supplied all of the food.

They stayed at Upper Howqua campground and he said Erin served him a chicken curry with rice.

Simon claimed he became sick about midnight, and they drove to Mansfield Hospital the next morning where he was given anti-nausea drugs and discharged after the vomiting stopped.

However, his condition got worse once they returned home and he called Erin who took him to hospital.

Simon fell into a coma and underwent several surgeries, including where part of his bowel was removed.

When he recovered, he said the doctors did not find the cause of what happened to him.

He said Erin supported and cared for him at this time — communicating with his family, cleaning his home, paying his bills and getting his car serviced and a tyre fixed.

Simon said he stayed with Erin and his children at her Leongatha home for a month while he recovered.

A few weeks later, in July 2022, Simon said Erin made him a stew for lunch and he began feeling sick by midnight.

He was transferred to Monash Hospital, his symptoms abated and he went back to Erin’s Leongatha home again, staying for two weeks until he said Erin became upset.

In September 2022, Erin wanted to go for a walk with him and she again brought the food for the trip, he said.

After eating lunch at a picnic table at Wilson’s Prom, a vegetable wrap and curry he claimed Erin had prepared, he said he started feeling “uneasy” and “a little unwell”.

He said Erin had the same meal but allegedly without the wrap, which she had covered in foil and given to him.

Simon became increasingly sick, so they left and drove to his parents’ house before an ambulance was called.

He said he began to slur his words on the journey to hospital and lost muscle function. By the time he got to hospital he could only move his neck, tongue and lips.

He said those symptoms continued until he was given anaesthetic at hospital.

Simon started seeing Dr Ford in 2022, and said he told him to compile a spreadsheet of activities and meals before he had fallen ill the previous four times.

“I couldn’t understand why these things kept on happening to him, almost three near death experiences,” Dr Ford told pre-trial hearings.

“It didn’t fit into any of the medical models that would account for those things.”

He claimed Simon told him he feared he was being poisoned by Erin at a February 2023 appointment, where he changed his medical power of attorney.

He said Simon had been “apprehensive” at the time about eating cookies his daughter had given him “as he believed they might have been poisoned” with antifreeze.

He investigated Simon for low potassium after his fourth hospital admission, and Simon was referred to specialists including a gastroenterologist and kidney doctor.

Simon was at times told he had gastro, low potassium, hypertension, hyperthyroidism and high cholesterol.

During pre-trial, Erin’s lawyer Colin Mandy SC said the claims involving Simon could not be proven on the medical evidence.

Erin Patterson denied all attempted murder charges and pleaded not guilty to each, before prosecutors discontinued them and focused their trial on the lunch.