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An Australian doctor who raised the alarm about Erin Patterson has been sanctioned by the medical regulator over disparaging comments made about the triple murderer.<\/p>\n
Chris Webster was a key witness in Patterson’s trial, at which a jury found her guilty of killing three relatives and attempting to kill another with a deadly mushroom lunch in 2023.<\/p>\n
After the verdicts, Dr Webster told BBC that Patterson – now serving a life sentence – was a “heinous individual” and called her a “disturbed sociopathic nut-bag” in an interview with the Herald Sun.<\/p>\n
The Medical Board of Australia found his actions were inappropriate and ordered that the general practitioner undergo ethics, privacy and social media training.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
An investigation was launched when the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) received a flood of complaints about Dr Webster’s media interviews and use of explicit language.<\/p>\n
Dr Webster told the BBC on Friday that he understood and accepted the decision from regulators – who have not publicly commented on his case but listed the conditions on a public register.<\/p>\n
“As far as my comments go, I stand by them,” said Dr Webster, who still works as a GP in Patterson’s home town of Leongatha, in regional Victoria. <\/p>\n
He said that regulators did not find any breach of patient confidentiality, as he was talking about matters that had been openly discussed in the murder trial.<\/p>\n
“I was found to be inappropriate in my professionalism,” he said, “and that has to do with the use of salty language and my use of social media.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Earlier this month, Patterson, 50, was sentenced to life, with no chance of release for at least 33 years, for the murder of her in-laws Don and Gail Patterson and Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson.<\/p>\n
She was also found guilty of trying to kill Heather’s husband Ian Wilkinson by serving them a toxic mushroom lunch at her home.<\/p>\n
Dr Webster treated the Wilkinsons at a tiny hospital in Leongatha, before their mushroom poisoning was identified and they were urgently transferred to a major Melbourne facility.<\/p>\n