Victoria's Court of Appeal dismissed Erin Patterson's conviction appeal and removed the 33-year non-parole period.

Friday's order leaves the guilty verdicts in place and removes the 33-year non-parole period. ABC reported leave was granted on two of seven grounds and that those two were then dismissed, while the Daily Mail reported the hotel ground had no basis and did not print the leave step. The Mail says her lawyers have indicated a High Court appeal, and ABC says it is unclear whether they will file one.

The Daily Mail, ABC, and SBS reported Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, that Victoria's Court of Appeal dismissed Erin Patterson's appeal against her convictions and removed the non-parole period from her life sentence. The Daily Mail called the judges Supreme Court of Victoria appeal judges. ABC called the court Victoria's Court of Appeal and Victoria's highest court. SBS said Justice Stephen McLeish delivered the judgment from Melbourne's Supreme Court. All three named the bench as Stephen McLeish, Lesley Taylor, and Peter Kidd. Two appeals were before them. Hers challenged the convictions. The prosecution's challenged the sentence. ABC reported the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed on the ground that the sentence was "manifestly inadequate." SBS called Brendan Kissane the chief crown prosecutor. The Daily Mail called him Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions, Brendan Kissane KC.

The convictions those accounts describe are the murders of Don Patterson, Gail Patterson, and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather's husband. The Daily Mail reported the three who died ate death cap mushrooms in beef Wellingtons at Patterson's Leongatha home on July 29, 2023, and that Justice Christopher Beale sentenced her to life on September 8, 2025, with a non-parole period of 33 years. ABC reported the same three murders, the same attempted murder, a life sentence with a 33-year non-parole period, and a lunch in 2023, and it did not print July 29 or September 8. SBS reported a lunch in July 2023 at her Leongatha home, a sentence in September 2025, and ages the others did not print: Don and Gail Patterson both 70, and Heather Wilkinson 66. ABC's live blog reported Beale imposed three life sentences for the murders and 25 years for the attempted murder. The Daily Mail's account of the sentence did not print the 25-year term. Beef Wellington and beef Wellingtons are both in the Mail. ABC printed beef Wellingtons. A life sentence with a non-parole period, and three life sentences plus 25 years, are not the same way of writing the 2025 judgment.

Patterson's conviction appeal had seven grounds, ABC and the Daily Mail reported. ABC's live blog reported the court granted leave on only the first two, dismissed the other five, and then dismissed the two it had agreed to hear. Those two, the blog reported, were the jury's hotel accommodation and the use of her mobile phone data. SBS reported the hotel challenge was that jurors were accommodated in the same hotel as the Crown's primary police investigator and two prosecutors, that McLeish said the jury keeper had verified there was no communication, and that he said there was "only conjecture, guesswork, or surmise" and "no objective basis for a fair-minded person to reasonably apprehend that the jury might not have discharged its function." The Daily Mail reported the judges found the hotel ground had "no basis," and it did not print the leave step. Leave granted and then dismissed, and a ground with no basis, are not the same description of that ruling. ABC reported the phone-data ground was dismissed because the evidence was admissible. The Daily Mail reported she had also challenged Facebook messages, an SD card of mushroom photos and videos, and the cross-examination. ABC reported the appeal judges said Dr Rogers was "ably and fairly discharging her obligations," that her closing address had "some blemishes" but was not unfair, and that the other grounds failed.

On the sentence appeal, ABC reported the judges removed the non-parole period altogether, meaning the sentence will expire upon death. ABC reported they wrote, "This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms," and "On any view, these were heinous crimes." It reported they called the case one "of such shocking criminality that it is inappropriate to fix a non-parole period," and that McLeish called the conduct "carefully planned and deliberate." ABC quoted him: "The applicant's intent to murder all four victims was sustained for nearly three weeks from when she invited them to lunch, through to preparing and serving the poisoned meal and then throughout the protracted suffering and ultimate deaths that resulted." SBS printed "poisonous meal" in that passage, not "poisoned meal." SBS reported he called it "a cruel breach of trust to members of the applicant's extended family," and that the written judgment used "extraordinarily cold and calculated." ABC's live blog reported he described "an elaborate series of deceptions," including a false cancer claim. SBS reported the court described fabricated cancer claims used to explain why her children were not at the lunch. The children are not named here. SBS also reported suppression orders remain and that the children and their schools cannot be named. Poisoned and poisonous are not the same word. A false cancer claim and fabricated cancer claims are two descriptions of what the court was reported to have said.

How she appeared, and how old she would have been at the old parole date, are not the same in these accounts. The Daily Mail reported she appeared by video link in a blue prison-issued jumper, with her hair in a ponytail and glasses, and showed no emotion. ABC's article reported she watched on a video link, sat back, and appeared to stare blankly, and that she is held at the Dame Phyllis Frost women's prison. ABC reporter Jarrod Whittaker, on the live blog, said she showed no emotion. An earlier entry on that blog said she had chosen not to come in person and could be seen in a white room, staring out a window. Another entry spelled the prison Dame Phillis Frost Centre. SBS reported she was not in the courtroom and watched from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Ravenhall. No emotion, a blank stare, and staring out a window are not the same observation. Phyllis and Phillis are not the same spelling. ABC and SBS reported she is 52. The Daily Mail story did not print her age. ABC's live blog reported that, with time already served, the old non-parole period could have meant release in 2056, when she would be 82. The Daily Mail reported that, before Friday, she would have been 81 when she became eligible for parole. Eighty-one and 82 are not the same age. The Mail also reported the new term makes her only the second woman in Australia sentenced to life without parole, and named Katherine Knight, sentenced in 2001, as the first. ABC and SBS did not print that comparison.

What happens next is not agreed. The Daily Mail reported her lawyers have indicated she will appeal to the High Court, and called that the last avenue. ABC reported it is unclear whether her legal team will mount a High Court challenge, and that legal experts say the bar for special leave is high. SBS reported legal experts say the remaining avenue is an application for special leave to the High Court. An indication that she will appeal, and a report that it is unclear whether she will, are not the same fact. Friday's order is the Court of Appeal's judgment on the conviction appeal and on the sentence. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.