The legal eagles behind the mushroom trial that captured the world’s attention

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Erin Patterson has been found guilty of murdering three people and trying to kill a fourth by poisoning them with death cap mushrooms.

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It’s the case that has captured attention around Australia, and the world. Here are the main legal figures who took part in the Erin Patterson triple-murder trial.

The judge

With more than a decade on the bench, Christopher Beale is one of the most experienced judges in Victoria’s Supreme Court.

Beale was a criminal barrister, a senior counsel and a Crown prosecutor before he was appointed a judge in September 2014.

Erin Patterson in a prison van during her trial.

He presided over the 2018 trial of three men accused of plotting a jihad-inspired terror attack on Melbourne landmarks. A jury found the men guilty and Beale jailed them for between 16 and 26 years.

In 2019, Beale was to oversee the trial of Borce Ristevski, who had been charged with murdering his wife, Karen Ristevski. But before it started, Borce Ristevski pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting he killed Karen and hid her remains in bushland.

The judge’s pre-trial ruling that prosecutors could not use Ristevski’s conduct after Karen’s death to prove murderous intent crippled the Crown’s case for murder.

Beale jailed Ristevski for nine years with a non-parole period of six years, but the Court of Appeal increased the jail term to 13 years after prosecutors argued the original sentence was manifestly inadequate.

Genteel in his interactions from the bench during Erin Patterson’s trial, Beale was thorough when instructing the jury.

The lead prosecutor

Dr Nanette Rogers, SC, was appointed a Crown prosecutor by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions in 2012 and is now one of the state’s most senior prosecutors.

She was previously made a queen’s counsel in the Northern Territory, where she also compiled a landmark report that alleged child sexual abuse and neglect were widespread and under-reported in Indigenous communities in the territory. That report prompted a government inquiry and ultimately the Howard government’s emergency response legislation.

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, outside court last week.

In Victoria, Rogers has prosecuted offenders in sex crime cases and also led the Crown case against Adrian Basham, who was found guilty of murdering his estranged wife, Samantha Fraser, at her Phillip Island home in 2018.

In that trial, Rogers argued against the defence position that Fraser took her own life after Basham assaulted her. A Supreme Court judge jailed Basham for life, to serve 30 years before he is eligible for parole.

Known for her colourful turn of phrase when addressing the jury in Patterson’s trial, Rogers also went head-to-head with the accused woman over five days of cross-examination. “Are you making this up as you go along, Ms Patterson?” she asked the mushroom cook at one point.

However, she wasn’t there when the verdict was delivered on Monday.

The lead defence counsel

Colin Mandy, SC, swept into court alongside his junior barrister Sophie Stafford for each day of the mushroom trial. It was not the first high-profile trial he has taken on.

Colin Mandy, SC, led Erin Patterson’s defence team.

In his first week after being admitted to the Bar 25 years ago, Mandy worked with esteemed human rights barrister Julian Burnside, QC, at the High Court of the Solomon Islands.

He became a senior counsel, or “silk”, in 2018. The position recognises barristers with high professional standing, skill and integrity.

One of Mandy’s prominent cases was defending Ari Sherani from terrorism allegations in Victoria’s Supreme Court. Sherani, alongside his brother Aran, was accused of attempting to commit a terrorist act by dousing bushland near Humevale, north of Melbourne, in petrol before setting it alight in the summer of 2021.

The brothers were acquitted, and Mandy described his client, the elder brother, as a “weed-smoking, fun-loving guy”.

The lawyer also represented Kandasamy Kannan, one half of a couple jailed for enslaving a woman in their home for eight years, at an appeal hearing.

The junior prosecutors

While Rogers led the Crown’s case against Patterson, she had a team of lawyers working with her to share the load during the 10-week trial and in hearings and preparatory work beforehand.

Rogers and colleagues Jane Warren (centre) and Sarah Lenthall outside court on June 30.

Among those lawyers were Jane Warren and Sarah Lenthall, both Crown prosecutors and the junior barristers behind the lead prosecutor.

In the trial, Warren questioned some of the key witnesses in front of the jury and read into evidence transcripts of messages between Patterson and her family members. Warren, a former Office of Public Prosecutions solicitor and then an independent barrister before she became a Crown prosecutor, was in court on Monday for the jury’s verdicts, as Rogers was absent from court.

Lenthall has been a Crown prosecutor for about 18 months and was previously an OPP solicitor. She was involved in addressing Justice Beale in pre-trial hearings, before the jury was selected.

The junior defence counsel

Mandy’s junior barrister was Sophie Stafford, a criminal law specialist whose work has included inquests and inquiries. Before joining Mandy to defend Patterson, Stafford took part in another case that gripped the country.

She was part of the defence of Terence Kelly, who abducted West Australian girl Cleo Smith, then aged four, as she slept in her tent as her family camped in Carnarvon in 2021.

Sophie Stafford and Mandy outside court last week.

Police found Chloe at Kelly’s home 18 days after he snatched her. He was sentenced to 13½ years behind bars.

Stafford was also part of the team that defended Jacob Elliott, the son of slain crime boss Nabil Maghnie, over a fatal shooting outside Melbourne nightclub Love Machine in 2019.

Elliott and Allan Fares were found guilty of murdering security guard Aaron Khalid Osmani and patron Richard Arow outside the nightclub.

Both men were sentenced to life.

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