Australian woman has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder relating to a lunch she served at her Leongatha home in 2023. Follow live updates
Don and Gail had dined at Erin’s before, court hears
Anna Terrington also recalls a lunch that her parents, Don and Gail, had at Erin’s house in 2023 – before the fateful mushroom meal.
Continue reading...Australian woman has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder relating to a lunch she served at her Leongatha home in 2023. Follow live updates
Ian Wilkinson says late wife Heather ‘fairly excited’ about lunch
The examination now turns to the invite for the mushroom lunch.
There was no reason for the lunch.... We were very happy to be invited. It seemed like maybe our relationship with Erin was going to improve.
Just seemed like a normal person to me... when we met, seemed quite friendly. We never had arguments or disputes.
She just seemed like an ordinary person.
Continue reading...Ian Wilkinson, whose wife was among three who died, tells Victorian court the triple murder accused ‘just seemed like a normal person to me’
The only surviving guest of the beef wellington lunch at Erin Patterson’s house has told her triple murder trial he was happy and excited about being invited for the meal.
Ian Wilkinson, the pastor at the Korumburra Baptist church, is the sixth witness in the supreme court trial at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell.
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Continue reading...Horsham local Glenn Coffey says he witnessed large numbers of sick birds falling out of trees and drowning in Wimmera river
Victoria’s conservation regulator has launched an investigation into the suspected fatal poisoning of 300 little corellas in Horsham, in the state’s north-west.
The incident, which began on Tuesday last week, has killed hundreds of protected birds in a popular park near the Wimmera river, just south of the city centre.
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Continue reading...Australian woman has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her Leongatha home in 2023. Follow live updates
Our justice and courts reporter, Nino Bucci, was in the court room in Morwell last week for the first week of Erin Patterson’s murder trial.
Catch up on his report on the first week of the trial:
Continue reading...Despite relentless commentary about the premier’s unpopularity, the state swung even harder to Labor than in 2022, while the Liberal party blame game has begun
If anyone is as happy as Anthony Albanese right now, it’s Jacinta Allan.
As the federal election results rolled in on Saturday night, one of the biggest surprises came in Victoria – where Labor defied months of grim predictions to strengthen its grip on the state.
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Continue reading...Simon Patterson tells Victorian court of ‘inflammatory messages’ his wife sent to his parents amid a financial dispute
Erin Patterson was “extremely aggressive” during a financial dispute with her estranged husband about their children, a Victorian court has heard, as more message exchanges between the former couple were revealed.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha in South Gippsland in 2023.
Continue reading...Victoria DPP’s move on charges against Vincenzo Crupi brings end to case that threatened to force police to reveal informer’s identity
The Victorian director of public prosecutions has dropped murder charges relating to the shooting death of gangland lawyer and police informer Joseph “Pino” Acquaro.
The explosive development brings to an end a court case that threatened to force Victoria police to reveal the identity of human sources in order to prosecute Vincenzo Crupi, who they alleged had murdered Acquaro.
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Continue reading...Victorian supreme court judge tells jury that charges relating to Simon Patterson have been dropped
The trial of Erin Patterson for allegedly murdering her in-laws by serving them a lunch laced with death cap mushrooms has started in a Victorian court.
Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in South Gippsland in 2023.
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Continue reading...Detection of powerful nitazenes in samples from 60 sites a ‘red flag’ amid surging use to lace street drugs
Synthetic opioids a thousand times stronger than morphine and an animal sedative used to lace street drugs have been detected in Australia’s wastewater.
The discovery has been described as a “red flag” and comes as the deadly class of synthetic opioids – nitazines – claims dozens of lives in Australia.
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Continue reading...Small group booed and yelled at Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown’s welcome and Victorian governor’s acknowledgement of country
A man is expected to be charged for offensive behaviour after a group including an alleged neo-Nazi booed and heckled a welcome to country at Melbourne’s main Anzac Day dawn ceremony.
A small group of people booed and yelled throughout the welcome delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown at the 5:30am service at the city’s Shrine of Remembrance.
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Continue reading...Third-party group Better Australia has posters and representatives wearing yellow ‘community adviser vests’ at multiple locations in Sydney.
Third-party groups targeting the teal independents are flooding pre-poll locations in Victoria and New South Wales, and include campaigners with links to the Jewish community such as Repeal the Teal.
In Goldstein, where the independent Zoe Daniel is hoping to hold off Liberal candidate Tim Wilson, Repeal the Teal has made its presence known this week with posters, T-shirts and pamphlets. The group is also campaigning in Kooyong.
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Continue reading...Seven Regions Nuclear Free alliance launches campaign representing groups who oppose the Coalition’s proposed nuclear reactors in their communities across Queensland, NSW, SA, Victoria and WA
Trade unions, conservationists, First Nations groups, church congregations and community organisations have launched a coordinated campaign against opposition leader Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear reactors across Australia.
The Coalition has pledged, if elected, to build seven nuclear reactors to replace retiring or retired coal sites naming Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Liddell and Mount Piper in New South Wales, Port Augusta in South Australia, Loy Yang in Victoria, and Muja in Western Australia.
Continue reading...As a cardinal under the age of 80, the Ukrainian-born priest will be one of the select few Catholic leaders to gather in the Vatican for the papal conclave
A 45-year-old Ukrainian-born Melbourne bishop who will be among the world’s top-ranking Catholic officials who will vote to select the next pope says he is filled with sadness over Pope Francis’s death.
Mykola Bychok, Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official after Francis made him a cardinal late last year, is currently on his way to the Middle East for a pilgrimage but will travel on to Rome for the funeral and then the papal conclave.
Continue reading...The child died after becoming trapped between rocks at South West Rocks on Sunday afternoon
A nine-year-old boy has died after becoming trapped between rocks at a popular holiday spot on the New South Wales mid-north coast, amid a spate of drowning deaths over Easter.
Police and other emergency services tried to free the boy from the site at South West Rocks on Sunday afternoon but he died at the scene.
Continue reading...One woman managed to get back to shore after three washed into water near George Bass coastal walk south of Melbourne
A woman has died and a man is missing after they were swept from rocks near a popular coastal walk in Victoria.
A further three people have also drowned in separate incidents in New South Wales.
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Continue reading...Education minister Ben Carroll says VCAA overhaul will aim to give families, students and schools full confidence in exams
The entire board of Victoria’s curriculum authority has been sacked after a review into the state’s VCE cheat sheet bungle last year.
The blunder, during last year’s year 12 exams in Victoria, saw the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) accidentally publish exam content weeks before students sat for the tests. The review found the sample cover pages containing exam content had been viewed about 6,000 times.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Brad Battin says he had a conversation with the federal opposition leader about the ‘language’ he would use about plans to build a nuclear reactor in eastern Victoria
The Victorian opposition leader says he discussed the language he would use to distance the state party from the federal Coalition’s campaign to build a nuclear reactor in the Latrobe Valley, telling Peter Dutton “it’s your campaign”.
The Loy Yang coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley east of Melbourne is one of seven proposed sites for the federal Coalition’s proposal to build nuclear reactors, the centrepiece energy policy the federal Liberal leader will be taking to the 3 May poll.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Police confirm report of two offensive signs targeting Bruce MP Julian Hill, who is gay, hung on overpass bridge
Police have removed two offensive and homophobic banners targeting Labor MP Julian Hill that were hung over a major Melbourne highway on Friday morning.
The banners prompted bi-partisan condemnation and were described by Victoria police as an example of “hate-based behaviour” that would not be tolerated.
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Continue reading...Shift away from fossil fuels by BOC is expected to cut company’s Australian emissions 40% by 2035 and follows similar commitment by Rio Tinto
A major industrial gas company in Australia will shift its power use away from fossil fuels and instead meet nearly half its electricity needs across three states from solar.
BOC, owned by global gas and engineering company Linde, supplies speciality gases to large manufacturers, industry and oxygen to hospitals.
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