Triple murderer Erin Patterson, handed a 33-year minimum sentence on Monday, could spend the rest of her days crocheting in a solitary cell in a maximum security prison unit on Melbourne’s outskirts.

“No doubt they will keep her in the slot [solitary confinement] for a while,” a prison source who has spent years inside the system under various restriction regimes told this masthead.

“She definitely won’t get a job in the prison kitchen – that’s for sure.”

Despite Patterson’s stoicism in the courtroom, she would almost certainly have been placed under special observation on Monday after her return to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Melbourne’s west, over concerns she could self-harm.

Justice Christopher Beale, the sentencing judge, was at pains to ensure it was clear Patterson’s isolat

See Full Page