Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial LIVE updates: Protester sceams at judge as he ambushes courtroom

A protester has ambushed the Erin Patterson trial asking Justice Christopher Beale how he could be a judge.

The man (pictured below) wearing a yellow T-shirt with the slogan ‘All we are saying is give truth a chance’ went on a rant just after the jury re-entered the courtroom.

‘Mr Beale how could you be a judge when you rig court cases,’ the man yelled out.

Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, the police informant in the Patterson trial, approached the man and walked him out of the courtroom.

The trial resumed without further interruption.

Lead defence barrister Colin Mandy SC has pressed Mr Fox-Henry on an image of a dehydrator allegedly found on a Samsung tablet seized from Patterson’s home.

Mr Fox-Henry agreed it wasn’t possible to say when the image was taken by the device, or if the sender interacted with the images on the device.

He also couldn’t say whether the images had been received by anyone else.

Mr Fox-Henry said the history of the dehydrator ‘thumbnail’ image found on the Samsung tablet was ‘very limited’.

The jury has previously heard evidence a food debris samples taken from a dehydrator Patterson dumped at a tip tested positive for death cap mushrooms.

Mr Fox-Henry said he accepted the records he detected were from activity on the computer which was generated in a three-minute period.

This included a visit to the iNaturalist site and a visit to The Korumburra Middle Hotel website.

Mr Mandy SC (pictured) highlighted the jury had heard evidence the Korumburra pub search included a Google Chrome autofill purchase.

Mr Fox-Henry said he didn’t check the records to ascertain whether or not the autofill settings were available to multiple users who had access to the computer.

The jury heard investigators can tag artefacts of interest generated in an Axiom report with the term ‘evidence’.

Mr Fox-Henry also agreed he could have performed a more precise analysis of the seized Cooler Master PC to find information about autocomplete internet searches.

He said digital forensics officers such as himself are sometimes asked to track ‘user activity’.

Mr Fox-Henry told the jury he used a write-blocker to analyse a computer seized from Erin Patterson’s home.

The jury heard a write-blocker is a hardware device which stops forensic officers from ‘writing or changing data’ on a hard drive.

Mr Fox-Henry confirmed he also used a Magnet Axiom digital forensics tool to analyse the device which ‘spat out a report’.

However, he said he didn’t analyse the contents of the ‘Axiom report’ once it was generated.

The jury has previously heard evidence that a search of the iNaturalist website where death cap msuhroom sightings had been highlighted were found on the computer.

Mr Fox-Henry also admitted he was ‘unable to say’ the extractions from the computer were performed correctly.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry (pictured) has had his credentials tested in court.

Erin Patterson, who is wearing a sage green jumper, listened as her barrister Colin Mandy SC put it to Mr Fox-Henry he only had limited qualifications at the time he analysed devices seized from the accused killer’s Leongatha home in August 2023.

Mr Fox-Henry, who the jury heard prior has analysed devices including a computer and Samsung mobile phone linked to the case, agreed he had gained more qualifications since he was first handed the devices.

Mr Fox-Henry agreed he was ‘following instructions from peers on how to do it (analyse the computer)’.

Erin Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, after allegedly serving them a beef Wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms.

Patterson is also accused of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, pastor Ian Wilkinson (pictured below), who survived the lunch after spending several weeks in an intensive care unit.

The court heard Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, was also invited, but didn’t attend.

Witnesses told the jury Patterson ate her serving from a smaller and different coloured plate than those of her guests, who ate from four grey plates.

Patterson told authorities she bought dried mushrooms from an unnamed Asian store in the Monash area of Melbourne, but health inspectors could find no evidence of this.

The health department declared the death cap poisoning was ‘isolated’ to Patterson’s deadly lunch.

Multiple witnesses, including Simon Patterson, Ian Wilkinson and other family members, have given emotion-charged evidence to the jury.

Medical staff have told the jury of the painful symptoms the dying lunch guests and Mr Wilkinson suffered.

An expert witness told the court death cap mushrooms were detected in debris taken from a dehydrater Patterson had dumped at a local tip.

Telecommunications expert Dr Matthew Sorell also told the jury Patterson’s phone was detected near areas in Outtrim and Loch where death cap mushrooms had been spotted.

Victoria Police Cybercrime Squad senior digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry said he found evidence of a death cap mushroom on data from a computer seized from Patterson’s Leongatha home on August 5, 2023.

On Friday, Austin Health Intensive Care Director Professor Stephen Warrillow told the jury he was at the hospital in July 2023 when the death cap poisoned lunch guests were transferred to his care.

Professor Warrillow said all patients received intense treatment and Don and Ian received liver transplants.

Erin Patterson vented about her in-laws to online friends in the months leading up to the fateful lunch on July 29, 2023 that claimed their lives.

In the messages, Patterson described her in-laws as a ‘lost cause’ and exclaimed ‘f**k them’.

Patterson showed no emotion at the back of courtroom four of the Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court in Victoria’s east, where her Supreme Court hearing is being held.

Mr Fox-Henry (pictured below) was able to recover the Facebook messages from a Samsung phone seized by police upon Patterson’s arrest in August 2023.

Some of the messages to her online friends read:

‘Simon’s dad contacted me this morning to say that he and Gail had tried to talk to Simon about the matters I raised and to get ‘his side’ but he refused to talk about it other than to signal he disagreed with what I said.

‘Beyond that he wont talk about it. So Don said they cant adjudicate if they don’t know both sides and Simon wont give his side. So he said all he can ask is that Simon and I get together to pray for the children.

‘This family I swear to f**king God.’