Erin Patterson risks a retrial after jurors sequestered for deliberations stayed in the same hotel as prosecution lawyers and the lead detective, her appeal lawyers told Victoria’s Court of Appeal. The defence says the overlap, driven by an accommodation squeeze during a major table tennis championship in Gippsland, "fatally undermined" the fairness of the jury's verdicts.
The underlying crime drew national attention when Patterson served a mushroom-laced lunch in Leongatha in July 2023, killing three and gravely injuring another. The victims were well known in nearby Korumburra and the trial in Morwell attracted a heavy presence of journalists, lawyers and spectators, stretching local hotel capacity.
Because of that strain, Justice Christopher Beale ordered jurors be sequestered once deliberations began. The arrangement was meant to isolate the 12 jurors from outside influence, but securing separate accommodation proved difficult as the trial ran longer than expected. On the morning of Monday 7 July an email from the judge's chambers disclosed that Detective Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall and two prosecution solicitors had been staying at the same hotel as the jury. The note said the jurors had exclusive use of a separate floor and ate meals in a conference room, while common areas like the lobby were shared.
The trial judge warned the overlap was "obviously undesirable," and the prosecution later acknowledged awareness of the situation, saying the detective "took steps to avoid common areas from the point that he became aware that [the jurors] were there." The prosecution added staff tried to secure other rooms but could not rebook two solicitors, and those solicitors also took steps to avoid any "incidental contact." The jury reached its verdicts that same afternoon.
Patterson’s lawyers argue the hotel cross‑contact was a "fundamental irregularity" that "fatally undermined" the verdicts. "The only proper remedy is... the order for a re-trial," defence barrister Richard Edney told the appeal court, and he described the episode as "catastrophic" and "an inexplicable and perhaps still unexplained failure in the process." The defence says its post-verdict requests for the state's juries commissioner to investigate were rejected, and that crucial evidence about that week is missing, including CCTV and sworn statements from those who stayed in the hotel, among whom were an unknown number of journalists.
The prosecution dismissed a contemporaneous media account as "unverified" and "seemingly inaccurate." With those conflicting accounts and limited documentary proof, the appeal turns on whether the overlap in accommodation created contamination sufficient to unsettle the original convictions. The Court of Appeal will now weigh the defence's call for a retrial against the record from the trial and the two brief emails exchanged in July.
