Accused mushroom chef Erin Patterson is being held in a secure unit alongside a convicted pedophile rapist, amid growing fears for her safety behind bars.
Ms Patterson, who is awaiting trial on three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder, is being held at Victoria’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a maximum security prison that can house 600 women.
Prisoners at the prison include serial killer “Black Widow” Robyn Lindholm, matriarch and gangland killer Judy Moran, violent “little terrorist” Momena Shoma and Ms. Patterson’s new cellmate – the rapist warden of the Malka Liefer school.
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish director was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the sexual abuse of two young high school students in August 2023.
Ms Patterson, 49, spent four months rubbing shoulders with some of Australia’s most violent women after being arrested and charged following a beef Wellington lunch with mushrooms and a deadly hat she served at her home at Leongatha on July 29.
She was arrested at her home on November 2 and taken to Dame Phyllis Frost, where sources say she needs protection from other inmates due to her alleged crime.
“If Erin was no longer protected, the girls would harm her,” they told the Sun Herald.
“She would have killed three elderly people. There is a rule, we don’t touch the elderly and we don’t touch babies so because of that, we put ourselves in protection.
“She would do it very, very hard in there because she would only be able to talk to two or three girls and that’s it.”
Accused mushroom chef Erin Patterson is being held in a secure unit alongside a convicted pedophile rapist amid growing fears for her safety behind bars.
Ms Patterson can expect to rub shoulders with the ‘girls’, some of the country’s nastiest women, at Victoria’s famous Dame Phyllis Frost Center (pictured).
Pastor Ian Wilkinson, 70, was the only survivor of the deadly lunch, which claimed the lives of his wife Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Don and Gail Patterson, both in their 70s.
Mrs. Patterson’s husband, Simon, pulled out of the lunch at the last minute.
Court documents revealed Ms Patterson had been charged with attempted murder of her husband on four occasions.
This would have taken place between November 16 and 17, 2021, between May 25 and 27, 2022, September 6, 2022 and during the mushroom lunch in July 2023.
Ms Patterson is believed to be housed in a self-contained unit at Dame Phyllis Frost and has a bed, shower, toilet, sink, desk and cupboard.
As she is on remand, she is not required to work and would have access to a kitchen where she can prepare her own meals.
Also in the prison protection wing is Momena Shoma, a Bangladeshi Islamic State fanatic who continues her violence behind bars.
A typical cell in the women’s prison where Erin Patterson, who will be inducted into the famous prison this weekend, will be incarcerated
Shoma, jailed for a maximum of 42 years for stabbing a Melbourne homestay host in the neck in 2018, attacked a female inmate with garden shears.
After six years in prison added to her sentence in 2021, she declared: “I am proud of myself”.
Veronica Marie Nelson died alone in her Dame Phyllis Frost prison cell in January 2020, after at least 49 recorded calls for help were ignored by prison officers.
Earlier this year, an inquest found there had been a cover-up of gross negligence and discrimination which contributed to Ms Nelson’s death.
Victoria Police have spent 20 weeks preparing a brief of evidence against Ms Patterson which will be presented on Monday.
The prosecution will rely on photos and witness statements collected by police as evidence of Ms. Patterson’s alleged crimes.
The accused mushroom chef is next due to appear before Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court via video link for a committal hearing on May 3.