Mokbel receives government payout for savage jail bashing

Drug kingpin Tony Mokbel, who was released from custody in April after almost 18 years in custody, has had another legal victory after receiving an undisclosed financial settlement over a savage attack in Barwon Prison in 2019.
However, Mokbel will be unable to access the funds until at least June 2026, after the Victorian government paid the settlement into a 'prisoner compensation quarantine fund' on Thursday.
It is unknown when the case settled, but lawyers acting for the now 59-year-old launched Supreme Court proceedings against the state in February 2023, when Mokbel was still behind bars.
According to a statement of claim, the governor and senior staff at Barwon Prison had failed to take adequate measures to protect Mokbel from a brutal bashing and stabbing by two fellow inmates on February 11, 2019.
Senior prison staff are accused of failing to adequately respond to an anonymous, handwritten note received by the prison a few days earlier, which warned a high-profile inmate in the Diosma unit would be 'taken out'.
Prison authorities also failed to take necessary measures to protect Mokbel following a story in the Herald Sun a day before the assault, which made him a target of inmates of Polynesian background, according to court documents.
Mokbel spent five days in a coma at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and sustained a 'traumatic brain injury causing intellectual disability'.
Lawyers acting for Mokbel had pursued aggravated and exemplary damages because they also alleged the prison had acted unlawfully and exacerbated their client's psychological injuries by rehousing him in a high-security unit upon his return from hospital.

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Perth Now

2 hours ago

• Perth Now

Huge question in mushroom trial

Is Erin Patterson a cold and calculated killer, or an accidental poisoner who panicked fearing she would be blamed? That is the question jurors in Victorian mother's triple-murder trial will be tasked with answering. After seven weeks of evidence and four days of closing arguments from both sides of the bar table, the jury was sent home earlier on Thursday afternoon with a final message from Justice Christopher Beale. 'It is more important than ever that you have a good weekend,' the trial judge said. 'I really want you to come back refreshed on Tuesday.' Ms Patterson, 50, is facing trial after pleading not guilty to the murders of Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. Prosecutors allege she deliberately poisoned a beef wellington lunch for the two couples with death cap mushrooms, while her defence say it was a tragic accident. Erin Patterson denied she wanted to harm her in-laws. Brooke Grebert-Craig. Credit: Supplied The trial, now in its final stages, will hear from Justice Beale on Tuesday as he sums up the relevant law, evidence and arguments, and identifies the key issues jurors will need to determine. This week, Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC and defence barrister Colin Mandy SC had their final opportunity to address the jury. What the prosecution alleges Over two days, Dr Rogers took the jury through the evidence that showed, in her submission, why the jury should have no difficulty finding Ms Patterson intentionally sourced and included death caps in the lunch, intending to kill her guests. Dr Rogers said it was the Crown's case the accused woman saw and acted upon two posts to iNaturalist on April 28 and May 22, 2023, of death cap mushrooms in the Gippsland region. It's alleged she visited Loch 10 days after Christine McKenzie shared the sighting online, two hours before purchasing a Sunbeam Food Lab dehydrator. An image, located in the cache data of Google Photos on a tablet found at her home, depicted what mycologist Dr Tom May said was 'highly consistent' with death caps sitting on a dehydrator tray in her kitchen, the prosecutor said. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC is leading the prosecution of Ms Patterson. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia These had a last modified date on May 4, the jury was told. 'It is open for you to infer that having dehydrated death cap mushrooms, at some stage she blitzed them into a powder, as she admitted doing for other mushrooms, and, in that form, hid them in the lunch guests' beef wellington,' Dr Rogers submitted. Dr Rogers told the jury Ms Patterson's phone records captured a possible second visit to Loch on May 22 and Outtrim the same day, where Dr May posted a death cap sighting on May 21. The prosecutor alleged Ms Patterson invited her husband Simon Patterson and his four relatives to her home two weeks before the lunch under the pretence of wanting to discuss medical issues. Simon pulled out the evening before, while the four lunch guests arrived about 12.30pm at Ms Patterson's Leongatha home. Simon Patterson remains married to Erin Patterson. Picture. NewsWire/Nadir Kinani Credit: News Corp Australia After the lunch, it's alleged Ms Patterson raised a fabricated cancer diagnosis to explain away the 'otherwise unusual lunch invitation'. 'You might be wondering why on earth would she tell such a lie?' Dr Rogers asked. ' Well, the prosecution says that the accused never thought she would have to account for this lie … her lie would die with them.' Dr Rogers told the jury it was the Crown's case Ms Patterson prepared six individually portioned beef wellingtons – five containing death cap mushrooms – with the sixth 'clearly intended' for her husband should he have changed his mind. She pointed to evidence from Ian Wilkinson that the four guests ate off large grey dishes while Ms Patterson had a smaller 'orangey-tan' plate, and Simon's evidence that Heather told him she noticed the accused woman had a coloured plate that was 'different to the rest'. 'The only reason she would do that is because she knew that there were poisonous mushrooms in the other meals because she'd put them there, and to ensure that she could identify the sole non-poisonous meal,' Dr Rogers alleged. Each of the lunch guests began experiencing symptoms of nausea and vomiting later the same night and made their way to hospital the following morning. Pastor Ian Wilkinson recovered after about a month and a half in hospital. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia By Tuesday, August 1, each was critically ill and in an induced coma at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne. Dr Rogers took the jury to Ms Patterson's first hospital attendance at 8.05am on July 31 – two days after the lunch. She told the court this was the first time Ms Patterson learned doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning. 'This is the moment, we suggest to you, that she realised that what she had done had not gone undetected. Her reaction: she wanted to leave,' Dr Rogers said. The jury was told Ms Patterson checked herself out of hospital against medical advice and returned 98 minutes later. Prosecutors say it is unclear what she did during this time, but argued her behaviour was not consistent with someone being told they'd potentially consumed a deadly toxin and their life was in danger. Dr Rogers said the Crown alleged the only 'logical explanation' was Ms Patterson knew very well she had not eaten death caps and had fled home to work out how to manage the situation. She returned to hospital at 9.48am, allegedly feigning being sick, and was transferred to the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne. Ms Patterson has pleaded not guilty. NewsWire / Paul Tyquin Credit: News Corp Australia Dr Rogers told the jury Ms Patterson was discharged 24 hours after returning to hospital, with medical results showing no evidence of mushroom poisoning. The prosecutor alleged the accused woman's actions after returning home amounted to a 'cover up'. These included allegedly lying about feeding the leftovers, without the mushrooms and pastry, to her kids, dumping the food dehydrator used to dry death caps and handing a 'dummy phone' to police. 'Phone B, we say, is a dummy phone set up deliberately by the accused to trick the police and to conceal the existence and, most importantly, the contents of her usual mobile phone,' Dr Rogers said. As part of her closing address, Dr Rogers pointed to what the Crown allege are five 'calculated deceptions' they say lie at the heart of the case. These allegedly were; the fabricated cancer claim, the lethal dose of poison 'secreted' in a home cooked meal, Ms Patterson feigning being sick, the cover-up and the untruthful evidence given from the witness box. She told the jury understanding the deceptions would allow them to 'safely reject any reasonable possibility that this was a terrible accident' and allow them to find she committed each of the alleged crimes. 'We say there is no reasonable alternative explanation for what happened to the lunch guests, other than the accused deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the meal she served them, with an intention to kill them,' Dr Rogers said. Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, died a day apart in early August 2023. Supplied. Credit: Supplied She asked jurors to consider what they would have done if it was really a horrible accident. 'Would you go into self-preservation mode just worrying about protecting yourself from blame?' the prosecutor asked. 'No. That's not what you'd do. You would do everything you could to help the people you love.' What the defence say Colin Mandy SC, Ms Patterson's barrister, began his address by listing out 'two simple issues' he said the jury would have to determine. These were; is there a reasonable possibility that death cap mushrooms were put into this meal accidentally, and is there a reasonable possibility that his client did not intend to kill her guests. Mr Mandy argued the prosecution had taken a flawed approach to the case, starting with the theory that Ms Patterson was guilty and working backwards by cherry-picking convenient fragments and discarding inconvenient truths. Colin Mandy SC is spearheading Ms Patterson's defence. NewsWire/Ian Currie Credit: News Corp Australia The defence lawyer told jurors the prosecution had sought to paint Ms Patterson as a cold and calculated killer who had spent months planning this crime, but he questioned what possible reason she would have to kill. He said Ms Patterson had no motive to want her husband or in-laws dead, arguing the evidence actually showed she had 18 years' of 'anti-motive' with strong and loving relationships with Simon's parents. 'There's no possible prospect that Erin wanted in those circumstances to destroy her whole world, her whole life. Surely it's more likely that her account is true,' he said. 'Don and Gail had never been anything but kind and understanding to Erin Patterson. There was absolutely no reason at all for her to hurt them in any way at all.' Mr Mandy argued the prosecution had made much of a short dispute Ms Patterson had with Simon in December 2022 to show there was tension in the family dynamics. But he said even Simon agreed the spat over their children's schooling and finances had simmered down by the end that month showed it was 'an entirely unremarkable minor blow-up'. The trial has drawn an extensive media presence. NewsWire/ David Crosling Credit: News Corp Australia Mr Mandy took the jury to a series of disparaging messages Ms Patterson sent about her in-laws to her online friends and to Don and Gail themselves in December, remarking this was her being honest about her feelings and standing up for herself. 'This was an aberration in her dealings with the Pattersons, and there is nothing to say otherwise,' he said. 'It stands out in this case because it's the only one.' The defence barrister reminded jurors of what Ms Patterson said about the reason for the lunch itself; that she'd been feeling 'isolated' from Don and Gail in recent months and was proactively trying to build bridges. He again questioned if it was more likely that she wanted to kill everyone or that she wanted to reconnect for the sake of her children. Moving on to the lunch and Ian Wilkinson's evidence that Ms Patterson ate from an orangey-tan dish while the other guests ate from large grey plates, Mr Mandy said Ian must have been mistaken. He pointed to footage taken by police at her home on August 5 which showed a small collection of plates – none of them grey or orangey-tan – and Simon's evidence that Ms Patterson did not have sets of matching plates. This, Mr Mandy said, was backed up by the evidence of Ms Patterson and the two children. 'The prosecution says, 'No, no, no, Ian's right and they're all wrong',' he said. 'Or, in Erin's case, not wrong or honestly mistaken. In Erin's case she's lying.' Erin Patterson has maintained she did not want to harm anyone. Supplied. Credit: Supplied Mr Mandy suggested that it wouldn't make sense to use a different coloured plate to identify the unpoisoned meal, when it would be far simpler to mark the pastry. Turning to Ms Patterson's illness and actions after the lunch, Mr Mandy said she had told jurors she binge ate an orange cake Gail brought and made herself sick. He suggested that because she had not claimed she vomited immediately after the lunch, or that she saw the meal in her vomit it was more likely to be the truth. The defence barrister pointed to Ms Patterson's account of adding dried mushrooms to the duxelles when preparing the dish, thinking it tasted bland. He suggested jurors might think she continued to taste the dish, after accidentally adding death caps, and this would be a 'sensible reason why Erin became unwell earlier' than the others. Mr Mandy told the jury the evidence was Ms Patterson was sick, just not as sick as Don, Gail, Heather and Ian. He said the expert evidence was people could experience a range of illness severity even after eating the same meal. On Ms Patterson's account of feeding the leftovers of the lunch to her children for dinner a day later, Mr Mandy said there was no expert evidence to back up the Crown's claim this cannot be true because they did not get sick. 'We submit to you that's another invitation to speculation; to make an assumption rather than acting on the evidence,' he said. Heather Wilkinson died, while her husband Ian survived. Supplied Credit: Supplied Mr Mandy told the jury there had been no evidence in the trial about what level of exposure to death cap toxins was required to affect the body or that vomiting a meal would leave a presence of the toxins. He pointed to evidence Ms Patterson had elevated haemoglobin and fibrinogen and low potassium; which intensive care professor Andrew Bersten said supported a diarrhoeal illness. 'Medical testing revealed three different factors,' he said. 'Three things that can't be faked.' Turning to her decision to leave hospital 5 minutes after arriving on July 31, Mr Mandy explained that his client was not prepared for what she walked into. 'In our submission to you when she left the hospital at 8.10am, there is only one reasonable explanation for why that happened, and that is she had arrived thinking she would be admitted to get some fluids for gastro,' he said. Mr Mandy and his junior counsel barrister Sophie Stafford. NewsWire/Ian Currie Credit: News Corp Australia Instead she was subjected to an 'extremely intense five-minute interaction' and struggled to understand what she was being told. Mr Mandy told the court his client returned after doing what she said she needed to do to prepare and was admitted. He said it was on August 1, while in hospital in Melbourne, when Ms Patterson began to panic that she would be blamed for the illnesses. Mr Mandy told the court his client was not proud of the lies she told and the decisions she made, such as taking the dehydrator to the tip, but Ms Patterson was 'not on trial for being a liar'. 'She starts panicking and she starts lying from that point,' he said. 'All of the things that she did after the lunch fall into that category and none of them … can actually change what her intention was at the time of the lunch. Either she had the intention or she didn't. 'You can't change the past because you behave badly in the future.' Members of the Patterson and Wilkinson families have been present every day for the trial. NewsWire / David Geraghty Credit: News Corp Australia In the days after the lunch, the jury was told, Ms Patterson told dozens of doctors, public health authorities and police she used button mushrooms from Woolworths and dried mushrooms she had purchased in April that year from an Asian grocer in Melbourne. On the stand, she maintained this was the case but said she now believed she may have added foraged wild mushrooms to the same Tupperware container. The barrister said photos of wild mushrooms found on a SD card supported Ms Patterson's account of developing an interest in foraging and eating mushrooms during the early Covid lockdowns in 2020. Mr Mandy said this interest also explains why computer records show she briefly looked up death cap mushroom sightings on the citizen science website iNaturalist in May 2022. 'It makes perfect sense that in the context of that dawning interest … that she would become aware of death cap mushrooms,' he said. 'And the question occurred to her because she was picking mushrooms in the wild, do they grow in South Gippsland?' Mr Mandy told the jury his client did not have to take the stand, but chose to place herself under 'such an incredible amount of scrutiny' from an experienced prosecutor. 'She came through that unscathed,' he argued. 'Her account remained coherent and consistent, day after day after day, even when challenged, rapid fire, from multiple angles, repeatedly.' Finishing his closing address, the barrister argued the prosecution can't get over the high bar of beyond reasonable doubt. 'If you think at the end of your deliberations … is a possibility that this was an accident, a reasonable possibility, you must find her not guilty,' he said. The trial continues.

7NEWS

2 hours ago

• 7NEWS

Carey Baptist Grammar School teacher in Victoria banned after sending 35,000 messages to student

A Victorian teacher who sent thousands of messages to a student and engaged in sexual acts with them following graduation has been banned from teaching. Former Carey Baptist Grammar teacher Eleanor Louise Yorke began dating an 18-year-old former student, who for legal reasons cannot be named. Yorke, who joined the school in 2017, taught biology and chemistry to Year 12 students. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Yorke, who was then 26, and the 17-year-old pupil began talking online over Microsoft Teams. The teenager contacted Yorke for additional help with schoolwork, which led to the pair talking every day. A disciplinary panel at the Victorian Institute of Teaching found Yorke had sent the student 35,000 messages. On Thursday, the now 31-year-old had her registration cancelled and has been banned from working in education for three years. '(Yorke's actions) occurred over a period of years, changing in nature from professional interactions into personal, intimate discussions and culminating in a sexual relationship,' the disciplinary panel said of its judgement. 'This deliberate rejection of professional standards by a teacher whose skills and talents had led to rapid promotion was one for which the panel could find no justification, nor was there any satisfactory explanation'. 'The emails show an increased emotional bonding developing through the extensive number of messages,' the panel also said. 'There were increasingly frequent references to taking the teacher's relationship with the student to a new level once the student had completed Year 12'. Yorke told the disciplinary panel that the relationship was entirely consensual, but she was concerned about the power imbalance. Carey Baptist Grammar stood Yorke down in 2023 after becoming aware of the relationship, citing concerns for professional standards. Yorke has said she is now pursuing a degree in psychology and has reportedly no desire to return to teaching.

ABC News

2 hours ago

• ABC News

Erin Patterson's mushroom murder trial jury soon to put the puzzle pieces together

For seven weeks, jigsaw pieces have been shaken out before the jury in Erin Patterson's triple-murder trial. Dozens of witnesses were called and exhibits ranged from photos allegedly showing death cap mushrooms being dehydrated in the lead-up to the murders, to reams of data extracted from seized electronic devices. The trial of Erin Patterson, who stands accused of using a poisoned meal to murder three relatives, continues. Look back at how Thursday's hearing unfolded in our live blog. To stay up to date with this story, subscribe to ABC News. In the trial's eighth week, the prosecution and defence used those pieces to assemble and present two contrasting pictures to the jury. The prosecution told the jury the pieces clicked into place to reveal Ms Patterson as a murderer, who had deliberately killed three relatives and attempted to murder a fourth. The lunch she had hosted at her regional Victorian home in 2023 was built on a series of deceptions, the prosecution alleged. The lethal one, lead prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC said, was Ms Patterson's lacing of the beef Wellington meals she served to her relatives. "The sinister deception was to use a nourishing meal as the vehicle to deliver a deadly poison," Dr Rogers told the Supreme Court jury. She invited the jury to consider the pieces of evidence around the "deviations" Ms Patterson made to the original beef Wellington recipe. While the method in the mother of two's cookbook called for a log of meat, individual eye fillets were used. Ms Patterson told the court that was because individual eye fillets were the only ones she could find. The prosecutor suggested that was a lie and the truth was far more calculated. "That choice to make individual portions allowed her complete control over the ingredients in each individual parcel," Dr Rogers said. "It is a control … that she exercised with devastating effect. "It allowed her to give the appearance of sharing in the same meal, whilst ensuring that she did not consume a beef Wellington parcel that she had laced with death cap mushrooms." Ms Patterson's decision to dump her food dehydrator (later found to contain death cap mushroom residue) at the tip and then lie to police about it was behaviour the prosecution said could be slotted together to form incriminating conduct. "If there was nothing incriminating about the dehydrator, why hide it?" Dr Rogers rhetorically asked the jury. "There is only one reasonable explanation: she knew it would incriminate her. "She knew that she had dehydrated death cap mushrooms in that appliance and that she had done deliberately done so, and she knew that keeping it was going to be far too risky." The prosecutor told the jury the evidence laid before them did not point to any "particular motive" for the crime, but this was not a requirement of the murder charges. "The question is not why she did this," she said. "The question you have to determine is: has the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did this deliberately?" While not alleging a particular motive, the prosecution placed more pieces of trial evidence before the jury to fill out its puzzle. Facebook messages with friends showed Ms Patterson's animosity towards her Patterson in-laws and mockery of their deeply held religious beliefs, Dr Rogers said. "She presented one side while expressing contrary beliefs to others." In concluding her address, the prosecutor told the jury the legal bar for proving murder beyond reasonable doubt had been "well and truly met". When all of the evidence was combined, Dr Rogers suggested the jury would be satisfied the accused had deliberately sought out death caps and served them to her relatives with malicious intent. "One piece on its own or by itself might tell you not very much at all about what the picture is," she said. "But as you start putting more and more pieces together and looking at it as a whole, the picture starts to become clear." She said while jurors may feel the alleged murders were "too horrible, too cold and beyond your comprehension", they needed to remain focused on the evidence. "Don't let your emotional reaction dictate your verdict, one way or the other," Dr Rogers said. When Ms Patterson's defence barrister Colin Mandy SC rose to his feet, he told the jury the absence of an alleged motive meant the prosecution's jigsaw was incomplete. "Without a motive, you're left guessing about the most important element of the offence in this trial and that's intention," Mr Mandy said. He walked through some of the tense communications between the accused and her estranged husband Simon Patterson several months before the lunch. But he said the picture they painted was a fairly ordinary one of two separated people managing the joint care of their young children. "There is nothing unusual about it. In fact, quite the opposite," Mr Mandy said. "It would be in some cases unusual if there wasn't that kind of spat or disagreement or frustration. He accused the prosecution of putting before the jury a series of "ridiculous, convoluted propositions" that were not supported by the evidence. He said Ms Patterson's simpler explanation of a dreadful "accident" was a truthful one that had emerged "unscathed" after days of cross-examination. "Her account remained coherent and consistent, day after day after day, even when challenged, rapid fire, from multiple angles, repeatedly," he said. Under that explanation, a Tupperware container in Ms Patterson's Leongatha pantry contained a mix of dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer and ones she had foraged from the Gippsland region. In that mix, Mr Mandy suggested, were the death cap mushrooms later added to the lunch. "The prosecution says she had them deliberately, the defence says she had them accidentally," he said. He told them Ms Patterson's actions after the lunch were the panic of an innocent woman in the aftermath of a ghastly accident. "Erin got into the witness box and told you, she did those things because she panicked when confronted with the terrible possibility, terrible realisation, that her actions had caused the illnesses of people that she loved," he said. In closing, Mr Mandy told jurors the prosecution had tried to "force the evidence to fit their theory in a way that does not apply to jigsaw puzzle pieces". "Stretching interpretations, ignoring alternative explanations because they don't align perfectly with the narrative," he said. "Missing puzzle pieces in a jigsaw puzzle can make the picture incomplete, but missing evidence is much more significant." He reminded the jury that if they did not accept all of Ms Patterson's evidence as truthful, they needed to set it to the side and consider whether the evidence actually existed to prove murder and attempted murder beyond reasonable doubt. After both sides in a trial that has astounded observers around the world had finished their address, the judge indicated the most important part lay ahead. Justice Christopher Beale will begin delivering his final instructions to the jury on Tuesday, which he said would break down the legal principles at stake in the case. After that, it will fall to the jury to begin piecing the puzzle together themselves.