Overview

• Patterson has been held as a designated major offender in the Gordon unit since November 2023, with movement and contacts tightly controlled for safety.
• She spends about 22 to 24 hours a day in her cell, with limited and escorted access to a small courtyard and periods when food and medication are passed through a trap door during lockdowns.
• Corrections Victoria attributed frequent lockdowns to staffing shortfalls linked to post‑COVID recruitment gaps and said conditions should ease by late 2025 or early 2026.
• She is permitted face‑to‑face conversation only with one prisoner serving a terrorism sentence through a mesh divider, and her lawyer said she has chosen not to engage.
• Library access has occurred only a handful of times under guard escort, leisure facilities have often been unavailable, and the judge noted these conditions did not sound very humane ahead of a 8 September sentencing.