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Woman found guilty in toxic mushroom murder trial

criticising the Northern Territory Police Force and the coronial process. The Northern Territory Police Force said it had started anti-racism strategies during the inquest and would examine the coroner’s recommendations in consultation with Indigenous leaders. Indigenous Australians are one of the most incarcerated groups in the world. Over 500 indigenous Australians have died in custody since a royal commission in 1991 made 339 recommendations to prevent such deaths. – Reuters Dozens leave remote Japan islands after nearly 1,600 quakes TOKYO: Dozens of residents have evacuated remote islands in southern Japan that have been shaken by nearly 1,600 quakes in recent weeks, a local mayor said yesterday. There has been no major physical damage on hardest-hit Akuseki island, even after a 5.1 magnitude quake that struck overnight, said Genichiro Kubo, who is based on another island. But the almost non-stop jolts since June 21 have caused severe stress to area residents, many of whom have been deprived of sleep. Of the 89 residents of Akuseki, 44 have evacuated to the regional hub of Kagoshima by Sunday, while 15 others also left another island nearby, Kubo told a news conference. The municipality, which comprises seven inhabited and five uninhabited islands, is roughly 11 hours away on a ferry from Kagoshima. Since June 21, the area has experienced as of early yesterday what seismologists refer to as a swarm of 1,582 quakes. Experts have said they believe an underwater volcano and flows of magma might be the cause. They say they cannot predict how long the tremors will continue. “We cannot foresee what might happen in the future. We cannot see when this will end,” mayor Kubo told reporters. A similar period of intense seismic activity in the area occurred in September 2023, when 346 earthquakes were recorded, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. Japan is one of the world’s most seismically active countries, sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”. The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, typically experiences around 1,500 jolts every year and accounts for about 18% of the world’s earthquakes. – AFP Nairobi tense as police block protesters NAIROBI: Police blocked roads and deployed in the deserted streets of Kenya’s usually bustling capital yesterday to prevent gatherings to mark annual pro-democracy rallies. Many people appeared to be staying home rather than attend the so-called Saba Saba Day (meaning Seven Seven) marches to commemorate July 7, 1990 when Kenyans rose up to demand a return to multi-party democracy after years of autocratic rule by then-president Daniel arap Moi. Around midday, AFP saw running battles with a group of anti-riot police who fired teargas at a small gathering of around 50 young men, with some of the crowd throwing rocks at officers. Protesters accuse the authorities of paying armed vandals to discredit their movement, while the government has compared the demonstrations to an “attempted coup”. TV stations also showed small gatherings on Nairobi’s outskirts and in several towns. – AFP

o Erin Patterson, 50, faces a maximum life sentence

mother and grandmother, retained a four person legal team, led by Colin Mandy, one of Melbourne’s top criminal barristers. She was the only witness in her defence, spending eight days on the stand, including five days of cross-examination. Patterson told the court about a life-long struggle with her weight, an eating disorder and low self-esteem, frequently becoming emotional as she spoke about the impact of the lunch on the Patterson family and her two children. She had lied about having cancer not to lure the guests to the lunch to kill them, but because she was looking for their help with telling her children and was embarrassed to say that she actually planned to have weight loss surgery, she told the court. Patterson had also not become as sick as her lunch guests because she secretly binged on a cake brought by her mother-in-law and then purged herself, she told the court. The jury of seven men and five women retired on June 30, taking a week to reach a verdict. The judge presiding in the case, Justice Christopher Beale, gave the jurors in the trial special dispensation to avoid jury duty for the next 15 years, due to the length and complexity of the case. – Reuters

faces a maximum life sentence. The 10-week trial in Morwell, a town around two hours east of Melbourne where Patterson had requested the case be heard, attracted huge global interest. Local and international media descended on Court 4 at the Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court the nearest court to Patterson’s home, despite being warned of lengthy delays. State broadcaster ABC’s daily podcast on proceedings was consistently among the most popular in Australia during the trial, while several documentaries on the case are already in production. The prosecution, led by barrister Nanette Rogers, told the court that Patterson had employed four major deceptions to murder her guests. She first fabricated a cancer diagnosis to lure the guests to the lunch, poisoning their meals while serving herself an untainted portion, Rogers told the court. Patterson then lied that she was also sick from the food to avoid suspicion, before finally embarking on a cover-up when police began investigating the deaths, attempting to destroy evidence and lying to police, the prosecution said. Patterson, who said during the trial she had inherited large sums of money from her

SYDNEY: An Australian woman was yesterday convicted of murdering three elderly relatives of her estranged husband with a meal laced with poisonous mushrooms, and attempting to murder a fourth, in a case that gripped the country. Erin Patterson, 50, was charged with the murders of her mother-in-law Gail Patterson, father-in-law Donald Patterson and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, along with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband. The four had gathered at Erin Patterson’s home in Leongatha, a town of about 6,000 people some 135km southeast of Melbourne, where the mother of two served them individual Beef Wellingtons that were later found to contain death cap mushrooms. The jury yesterday found her guilty of all four charges. Patterson had pleaded not guilty to all charges, saying the deaths were accidental. She will be sentenced at a later date and

CLEAN AND FRESH ... A herd of young elephants returns to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Kegalle, Sri Lanka, after taking their daily bath in the Maha Oya river. The site is about 90km from Colombo. – AFPPIC

Australian inquiry cites racism in indigenous shooting SYDNEY: An Australian police officer who fatally shot an indigenous teenager during an attempted arrest in 2019 was racist and worked in an environment “with hallmarks of institutional racism”, a coroner has found. confrontation, argued his actions were in self defence and was cleared of murder and manslaughter charges by a jury in March 2022. A mandatory coronial inquest into Walker’s death in custody began six months later and stretched for more than three years. that Rolfe’s racist attitudes “were operative” during the confrontation and a “contributing cause of Kumanjayi’s death”.

It comes despite an investigation into the Northern Territory Police Force last year finding that while there had been historical racism, there was no evidence of racist behaviour since 2015. Armitage said Rolfe also had an interest in “adrenaline-style policing” with a tendency to use excessive force and “dehumanise” suspects. She said this “may have led him to error” when arresting Walker. Rolfe was dismissed as an officer in 2023, after

The killing of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker by then-police constable Zachary Rolfe in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu sparked protests and renewed scrutiny of Australia’s treatment of its First Nations people. Rolfe, who had been stabbed by Walker in the shoulder with a pair of scissors during the

In findings handed down yesterday, Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said: “I am satisfied that Mr Rolfe was racist and that he worked in and was the beneficiary of an organisation with hallmarks of institutional racism. “This was not a case of one bad apple.” She said she could not exclude the possibility