> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # She’d like a Serve of Technicality with Her Shroomies - URL: https://goodoil.news/shed-like-a-serve-of-technicality-with-her-shroomies/ - Published: 2026-09-01T02:30:37.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-01T02:30:37.000Z - Description: Erin Patterson is hoping to capitalise on an unfathomable legal stuff-up. - Author: Lushington Brady - Tags: Australia, Crime It was the case which gripped a nation for months, and its about to make a comeback. The [“Mushroom Lady” poisoning case](https://goodoil.news/she-has-received-a-life-sentence/) dominated headlines and social media for months. Last year, the fungi-foraging felon was jailed for life plus 25 years. But the repercussions of the case go on: as [reported on *The Good Oil*](https://goodoil.news/hero-doctor-punished-for-telling-the-truth/) recently, the hero doctor who sparked the investigation into **Erin Patterson**’s lunchtime murder spree has been left penniless after gimlet-eyed bureaucrats decided that saying mean things about a triple murderer and likely serial poisoner. Now, Patterson, who by all accounts is as cunning as the proverbial shithouse rat, is launching a bid for freedom based on a technicality. If it succeeds, this will only cement Victoria’s reputation for catastrophic ineptitude. With such a high-profile case, being seen to keep the jury from any possibility of taint should have been a no-brainer. But ‘no brainer’ is Victoria’s middle name. > [What happened when](https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/erin-patterson-the-jury-hotel-and-the-curious-case-of-the-missing-cctv-20260824-p60qvh.html?ref=goodoil.news) the 12-person jury was sequestered in the same Gippsland hotel alongside police, prosecutors and media in July 2025 has become a central point in Patterson’s appeal against conviction for three murders and one attempted murder from the now infamous death cap mushroom lunch. The potential for jury taint is obvious: who knows who said what to whom in the lobby or the hotel bar? There is, of course, no evidence that any interaction did take place, but thanks to an erased hard drive, there’s also a problem with proving that it *didn’t*. The presiding judge allegedly ordered the hotel’s CCTV preserved, for just this reason. A hotel staffer told the media that the drive should have held the pictures for weeks or months. “They’re welcome to it,” the representative said. Except that there’s nothing there for them to be welcome to. > The whereabouts of the footage is a mystery after Juries Commissioner **Paul Dore** reported to the court it had been erased. No lawyer worth their salt is going to pass up such a golden opportunity to make a name for themselves. > Patterson’s legal team labelled the situation a potentially catastrophic failure of the system. But, hey, who needs CCTV when your lawyers have… newspaper clippings. > In the absence of CCTV, Patterson’s legal team tendered a series of articles detailing the unusual circumstances surrounding the jury’s sequestration from the ABC, Herald Sun and the Age. Director of Public Prosecutions **Brendan Kissane**, KC, dismissed those cuttings as “unattributed, unverified (and seemingly inaccurate) media reporting of unknown levels of hearsay”. Now, I ask you: does *that* sound like the media you know and love and believe without question? The prosecution admitted they had known the jury was already in the hotel a day before they checked in themselves and stayed because rooms were scarce: a table-tennis carnival had eaten Gippsland’s beds (does this case ever stop delivering?) They insist there was no interaction. There is no suggestion police, prosecutors or reporters tried to nobble anyone. Unfortunately, that’s not the point. The point is **Lord Hewart**’s maxim that “justice must be seen to be done”, which Patterson’s team now waves like a brand-new dehydrator dad found at the tip. Housing a sequestered jury with the people who want a conviction and a class of professional gossips, is, they say, “unsustainable”. The only proper remedy, they argue, is the convictions quashed and a retrial. Dore twice refused to ask police to investigate. No affidavits have been filed from the keepers, the OPP lawyers, the homicide detectives, the seven journalists or the hotel staff who shared the building. Kissane conceded the crossover would never have been approved in advance. But then, this *is* Victoria we’re talking about. None of this makes Patterson innocent. An 11-week trial produced dummy phones, foraging trips, lies about Woolworths mushrooms, faked diarrhoea and a flight from hospital against medical advice. The jury was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. Justice **Christopher Beale** called it the worst category of murder. She got life plus 25, concurrent, eligible for parole after 33 years. But the Mushroom Lady did not get this far by being stupid. If a vanished hard-drive and a booking stuff-up are enough to prise open the cell door, she will take it. The same system that punished Dr **Chris Webster** for calling a convicted triple murderer what she plainly is now finds itself unable to produce six days of lobby footage from a hotel stuffed with cameras. --- 💡 ****If you enjoyed this article please share it using the share buttons at the top or bottom of the article.**