Australian mushroom murder suspect not on trial for lying: Defense

Erin Patterson ‘loved’ mushrooms, her defense counsel said, explaining why she visited a website listing locations of death cap mushrooms near where she lived. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 18 June 2025
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Australian mushroom murder suspect not on trial for lying: Defense

  • Erin Patterson is charged with murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt in July 2023 by spiking their lunch with death cap mushrooms
  • She is also accused of attempting to murder a fourth guest – her husband’s uncle – who survived the lunch after a long stay in hospital

SYDNEY: An Australian woman accused of killing three lunch guests with deadly mushrooms should not be judged guilty just because she lied after the meal, her defense lawyer said Wednesday.

Erin Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering her estranged husband’s parents and aunt in July 2023 by spiking their beef Wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms.

She is also accused of attempting to murder a fourth guest – her husband’s uncle – who survived the lunch after a long stay in hospital.

Patterson has steadfastly maintained her innocence during a seven-week-long trial that has made headlines from New York to New Delhi.

As the trial came to its closing stages on Wednesday, defense lawyer Colin Mandy sought to explain Patterson’s behavior in the days following the deadly feast.

Patterson told police investigating the deaths that she did not own a food dehydrator, which was allegedly used to prepare the death cap mushrooms.

Security footage showed Patterson dumping a dehydrator at a nearby rubbish facility, and forensic tests found trace amounts of death cap mushrooms on the appliance.

“No one knows what they would have done in a similar situation,” Mandy told the trial.

“She is not on trial for being a liar.”

Mandy said there was nothing unusual about Patterson’s knowledge of death cap mushrooms.

She developed an interest in foraging for mushrooms during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, Mandy said, teaching herself which varieties were safe to eat.

It made “perfect sense” that Patterson would have become “aware of death cap mushrooms” during this period, Mandy said.

Patterson “loved” mushrooms, he added, because they were healthy and full of flavor.

This interest explained why Patterson visited a website listing locations of death cap mushrooms near where she lived, Mandy said.

Patterson originally invited her estranged husband Simon to join the family lunch at her secluded home in the farming village of Leongatha in Victoria state.

But he turned down the invitation on the eve of the meal, saying he felt uncomfortable going, the court heard earlier.

The pair were long estranged but still legally married.

Simon Patterson’s parents Don and Gail, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, attended the lunch.

All three were dead within days. Heather Wilkinson’s husband Ian fell gravely ill but eventually recovered.


Ukrainian parliament approves new government, lawmaker says

Updated 6 sec ago
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Ukrainian parliament approves new government, lawmaker says

The new cabinet includes two of Svyrydenko’s former deputies

KYIV: Ukraine’s parliament voted in favor of a new government under prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko on Thursday, according to lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

The new cabinet includes two of Svyrydenko’s former deputies — Oleksiy Sobolev as minister of economy, agriculture and environment, and Taras Kachka as a deputy prime minister for European integration — as well as Svitlana Hrynchuk as energy minister.

Man jailed in UK after releasing rats outside mosque

Updated 2 min 6 sec ago
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Man jailed in UK after releasing rats outside mosque

  • Edmund Fowler caught on CCTV committing offense 4 times 
  • Mosque manager: Community members ‘scared of further harassment’

LONDON: A man has been jailed in the UK after being filmed dumping wild rats outside a mosque in the city of Sheffield, The Independent reported on Thursday.

Edmund Fowler, 66, was caught on film unloading the rodents from the back of his car outside Sheffield Grand Mosque. Footage showed the rats running through the mosque’s fence into the grounds of the building.

Fowler did this a further three times between May and June before being charged. He pleaded guilty to four counts of racially aggravated harassment at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court, which sentenced him to 18 months in jail and banned him from going near a mosque for a further 18 months upon release.

The mosque’s manager said in a statement that community members “are scared of further harassment and are now too scared to come to the mosque.”


French court overturns town’s burkini ban after woman threatened with fines

Updated 15 min 59 sec ago
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French court overturns town’s burkini ban after woman threatened with fines

  • The seaside town of Carry-le-Rouet had implemented the ban in June 2024
  • The ban was largely irrelevant until July 2, when an 18-year-old Muslim woman from the city of Marseille went to the town’s beach

LONDON: The Marseilles administrative court has reversed a burkini ban on a French Riviera beach after police threatened fines against a teenager and her family for wearing the Muslim swimsuit, The Times reported on Thursday.

The seaside town of Carry-le-Rouet had implemented the ban in June 2024, but it was found by the court to be a “serious and illegal breach of fundamental freedoms” following the incident.

The ban was largely irrelevant until July 2, when an 18-year-old Muslim woman from the city of Marseille went to the town’s beach.

Two municipal officers spotted her in the sea and ordered her out using whistles. Her family asked what she had done wrong, and the officers said the woman’s garment was “not acceptable,” according to her brother Islan.

The police called for reinforcements. Five gendarmes who arrived later threatened the 18-year-old with fines unless she and her family left the beach.

Islan said the family then left the area. “My sister has taken it badly,” he added. “She is afraid to go out now, does not communicate with other people and avoids talking about what happened.”

The incident led to the Human Rights League seeking a court order overturning the town’s burkini ban.

Over the past decade, about 20 towns and cities on the French coast, including Cannes, have tried to ban the Muslim swimsuit on secular grounds, though almost all the bans were denied or later overturned.

In 2004, France banned Muslim headscarves in schools after MPs decided that the garment violates the secular values of the state education system.

Niqabs and burqas were outlawed in public in 2011 based on concerns that criminals could conceal their identities using the religious garbs.


Protester in UK threatened with arrest by armed police over Palestinian flag

Protesters wave Palestinian flags at the Palace of Westminster, home to the Houses of Parliament, in central London, on June 4.
Updated 4 min 31 sec ago
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Protester in UK threatened with arrest by armed police over Palestinian flag

  • Laura Murton, 42, held signs saying ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Israel is committing genocide’
  • Amnesty International UK describes footage of incident as ‘very concerning’

LONDON: British armed police threatened a peaceful protester with arrest under the Terrorism Act after accusing her of supporting Palestine Action, the activist group that was banned earlier this month.

Laura Murton, 42, held signs saying “Free Gaza” and “Israel is committing genocide” at the demonstration in the city of Canterbury, The Guardian reported on Thursday.

Officers told her that she had expressed views supporting Palestine Action. Neither of the signs held by Murton mentioned the group by name.

Murton, who filmed her encounter with the armed police officers, asked whether she supported any banned groups and replied: “I do not.”

One officer told her: “Mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all of that — all come under proscribed groups, which are terror groups that have been dictated by the government.” He added that the phrase “Free Gaza” expressed support for Palestine Action.

The government’s proscription of the group means it is an offense to express support for it and is punishable by law.

The officer accused Murton of committing that offense, and said she would be arrested unless she provided her name and address, which she did.

Murton told The Guardian: “I don’t see how anything I was wearing, how anything I was displaying, anything I was saying, could be deemed as supportive of the proscribed group.

“It’s terrifying. I was standing there thinking, this is the most authoritarian, dystopian experience I’ve had in this country, being told that I’m committing terrorist offenses by two guys with firearms.

“I ended up giving my details, and I really resent the fact I had to do that because I don’t think that was lawful at all.”

Lawyer’s representing Palestine Action’s co-founder, Huda Ammori, said in court submissions that the group’s proscription would likely produce a “wide chilling effect on speech and assembly of those seeking to speak out against Israel’s serious violations of international law.”

One of the officers who confronted Murton said: “We could have jumped out, arrested you, dragged you off in a van.” The police were “trying to be fair” in dealing with her, he added.

Murton said she was motivated to protest because “day to day, people are getting killed (in Gaza), and I can’t handle that … I can’t handle sitting and doing nothing.”

Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director, Tom Southerden, described the footage as “very concerning.”

He added: “We have long criticized UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. This video documents one aspect of exactly the kind of thing we were warning about.”


Magnitude 5.8 earthquake hits off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara

Updated 17 July 2025
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Magnitude 5.8 earthquake hits off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara

JAKARTA: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit off Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province on Thursday, with a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) depth and no tsunami potential, the country’s geophysics agency said.

There were no immediate reports of damage.