Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, June twelfth, twenty twenty five. China and the
Speaker 1: United States have hammered out a trade deal and both
Speaker 1: sides are claiming a win. But Chinese factories are closing
Speaker 1: and its exports to the US have tumbled. The Australians
Speaker 1: correspondent Will Glasgow is reporting today on the truth behind
Speaker 1: both sides spin on this fragile truce.
Speaker 2: The Crown alleges Aaron Patterson.
Speaker 1: Lied to more than a dozen people, including police, child
Speaker 1: protection workers, doctors and nurses, about feeding leftovers from a
Speaker 1: fatal mushroom lunch to her children. Patterson, who's fighting a
Speaker 1: triple murder charge, says that's not true, and she also
Speaker 1: says her kids and doctors are wrong about their recollections
Speaker 1: of that fatal day. That's today's story. Crown Prosecutor Nanette
Speaker 1: Rogers sc is digging into every moment of the days
Speaker 1: after Aaron Patterson's mushroom lunch in July twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: which left three elderly relatives dead and one seriously ill.
Speaker 1: Patterson is pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder
Speaker 1: and one of attempted murder. On Wednesday in the Victorian
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, Rogers spent hours putting to Patterson what she
Speaker 1: allegedly told doctors, nurses, police and her children.
Speaker 2: At the time.
Speaker 1: We've used voice actors to bring you the words spoken
Speaker 1: in court by Nanette Rogers and Aaron Patterson again and again.
Speaker 1: Patterson says the other witnesses are wrong in their recollections
Speaker 1: of what she said to them at the time, like
Speaker 1: Chris Webster, the doctor on duty at leand Gatha Hospital.
Speaker 3: Rus Webster's evidence was that when you first presented to
Speaker 3: lean Gatha Hospital, he asked you where you got the mushrooms,
Speaker 3: and his evidence was that you said Woolworths.
Speaker 4: I agree that I said Woolworths, but I disagree what
Speaker 4: the question was. That wasn't the question I remember him asking.
Speaker 4: He's mistaken the content of his question.
Speaker 1: Pattison says Webster actually asked where did you get the ingredients.
Speaker 1: Doctor Veronica Foot gave evidence that two and a half
Speaker 1: hours later, Patterson told her she'd bought some of the
Speaker 1: mushrooms from Safeway in Land Gaffer and some dried mushrooms
Speaker 1: from a Chinese grocer in Melbourne months earlier, in April.
Speaker 3: I suggest you had some time to think about your
Speaker 3: story in that intervening period. Correct or incorrect?
Speaker 4: Incorrect?
Speaker 3: You added a detail to this account concerning the mushrooms
Speaker 3: from the Chinese grocer, I suggest incorrect.
Speaker 1: Next, Patterson told doctor Laura Muldoon she had used dried
Speaker 1: dehydrated mushrooms. Possibly Sheitaki or Porcini and bought them at
Speaker 1: a Chinese grocery store in Oakley or Glen Waverley.
Speaker 4: Possibly I did tell her those things.
Speaker 3: I suggest it was a lie that you told her
Speaker 3: that you had used dried dehydrated mushrooms bought at a
Speaker 3: Chinese grocery store in Oakley or Glen Waverley.
Speaker 4: Incorrect.
Speaker 1: Muldoon told the jury Patterson said she came to hospital
Speaker 1: because she thought she had food poisoning.
Speaker 4: I didn't say that until I got to Lean Gatha.
Speaker 4: I thought I had gastro.
Speaker 1: A Health Department official Sally Anne Atkinson then began asking
Speaker 1: Patterson questions about the ingredients for the lunch she has
Speaker 1: told the jury. Patterson told her she'd bought the mushrooms
Speaker 1: in one of three suburbs of Melbourne. Patterson says Atkinson
Speaker 1: got the details wrong.
Speaker 4: I didn't say Mount Waverley, I said Glen Waverley.
Speaker 1: She said Atkinson was wrong to claim that Patterson described
Speaker 1: the mushrooms as smelling funny.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think I said smelled funny. My memory
Speaker 4: has always just been that it was a very strong
Speaker 4: or pungent smell. She's wrong about that word.
Speaker 1: Patterson agreed she didn't return sally on Atkinson's call on
Speaker 1: August two or answer a text message she sent. She
Speaker 1: said she told I Canson the names of streets in
Speaker 1: the Melbourne area where she might have bought the mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Bart said she had no memory of the actual purchase
Speaker 1: and no bank record of the transaction. On August five,
Speaker 1: when being interviewed by police, Patterson told them she had
Speaker 1: been very very helpful to the Department of Health as
Speaker 1: they tried to investigate the source of the poisoning.
Speaker 3: I suggest you weren't quote very very helpful to the
Speaker 3: department at all.
Speaker 4: I was trying to be that was untrue.
Speaker 3: In fact, you sent them on a wild goose chase
Speaker 3: trying to locate this Asian grocer correct or incorrect?
Speaker 4: Incorrect?
Speaker 3: And I suggest that the reason that you didn't answer
Speaker 3: some of those texts from her was because you did
Speaker 3: not want to be pressed for details about the Asian
Speaker 3: grocery store, because that story was not true. It was
Speaker 3: a lie that you used dried mushrooms from an Asian
Speaker 3: grocer correct or incorrect.
Speaker 4: Incorrect.
Speaker 3: You lied about the source of the death cap mushrooms
Speaker 3: because you knew you were guilty of having deliberately poisoned
Speaker 3: your four lunch guests.
Speaker 4: Incorrect.
Speaker 1: And what was Patterson telling health professionals about her children.
Speaker 1: Patterson has said she served the children leftover beef Wellington
Speaker 1: with the mushrooms and pastry scraped off the I feel
Speaker 1: at stake on the Sunday night. In a police interview,
Speaker 1: Patterson's son said, Mum said it was leftovers. Police asked
Speaker 1: Patterson's daughter how she knew that their Sunday night dinner
Speaker 1: was leftovers from the lunch. She told police Mum told me,
Speaker 1: But Patterson disagreed that she told the kids these were
Speaker 1: leftovers from the lunch.
Speaker 4: I only remember telling the kids on the Sunday that
Speaker 4: it was leftovers. I don't remember telling them anything about
Speaker 4: them being lunch leftovers.
Speaker 3: You told various people at Liam gath the hospital that
Speaker 3: you'd fed leftovers of the Beef Wellington with mushrooms and
Speaker 3: pastries scraped off to your children.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: A nurse Kylie Ashton gave evidence.
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson said on her first visit to the hospital
Speaker 1: on the Monday morning that the children had eaten leftovers
Speaker 1: from the Beef Wellington.
Speaker 2: Patison denied this.
Speaker 4: There were no conversations about the children eating leftovers in
Speaker 4: that first presentation.
Speaker 2: Patterson agreed.
Speaker 1: She told another nurse the children had no symptoms and
Speaker 1: hadn't eaten any mushrooms, and she told doctor Chris Webster
Speaker 1: that she didn't want the children to be stressed or
Speaker 1: panicked by getting pulled out of school.
Speaker 3: I want to suggest that surely the last thing you
Speaker 3: would have been thinking about, if you thought genuinely that
Speaker 3: your children had potentially eaten a fatal poison, that you'd
Speaker 3: be worrying about whether they'd be panicked or stressed about
Speaker 3: being pulled out of school.
Speaker 4: I didn't think they'd eaten a fatal poison because it
Speaker 4: was made clear to me that the issue was mushrooms
Speaker 4: and they had not eaten the mushrooms.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you lied to each of these medical
Speaker 3: personnel about your children eating leftovers of the beef Wellington.
Speaker 3: Agree or disagree? Disagree. I suggest that you were reluctant
Speaker 3: to have the children medically assessed. Agree or disagree.
Speaker 4: Initially I was, but before not for too long. I
Speaker 4: agreed they needed to come in, and I arranged for that.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you were initially reluctant because you knew
Speaker 3: they had not eaten leftover beef Wellington from the lunch.
Speaker 4: Incorrect.
Speaker 3: You knew that their lives were not at risk. Correct
Speaker 3: or incorrect?
Speaker 4: Incorrect?
Speaker 1: The court's already heard that Webster said to Patterson the
Speaker 1: children needed to come in, that they could be scared
Speaker 1: and dead or alive.
Speaker 3: You loved your children, correct, I still love them. When
Speaker 3: Dr Webster told you at ten am that the children
Speaker 3: could die, you must have realized it was really necessary
Speaker 3: to get them to the hospital.
Speaker 4: I suggest I didn't think that it was a real
Speaker 4: risk at that time.
Speaker 3: And you did not take immediate steps to make that happen. Correct.
Speaker 4: That's correct.
Speaker 3: In fact, you did not call Simon Patterson until more
Speaker 3: than an hour later. Correct.
Speaker 4: I don't know how long it was.
Speaker 1: Child Protection work at Katrina Crips spoke to Patterson on
Speaker 1: August one.
Speaker 3: You told her that when you served the meal, you
Speaker 3: dished up all of the plates and put tu aside
Speaker 3: for the children. Did you say that to Miss Crips
Speaker 3: on the first of August twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you did tell Miss Crips that you'd
Speaker 3: put aside two beef wellingtons for your children on two plates.
Speaker 3: Agree or disagree disagree? I suggest that you were trying
Speaker 3: to convey to Miss Creeps that you had prepared this
Speaker 3: meal not only for the lunch guests and yourself, but
Speaker 3: also for your children. Agree or disagree disagree.
Speaker 1: Rogers wanted to know if Patison thought she had food poisoning,
Speaker 1: and she knew her relatives wheel, why would she feed
Speaker 1: her children parts of the same meal on the Sunday night.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you told well over a dozen people,
Speaker 3: including your son and daughter, health professionals, child protection workers, police,
Speaker 3: and a friend, that you'd fed your children the same
Speaker 3: meal that you had served at lunch on twenty nine
Speaker 3: July twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: I was pretty clear it was the meal minus the
Speaker 4: mushrooms in pastry, so not the same.
Speaker 3: But yes, in terms of you making representations to people
Speaker 3: that you fed your children the leftovers from the lunch.
Speaker 3: I suggest that that was a deliberate lie correct or incorrect?
Speaker 4: Incorrect.
Speaker 3: You knew that what you fed your children on Sunday
Speaker 3: evenings did not contain death cap mushrooms. Agree or disagree,
Speaker 3: it didn't contain any mushrooms. You repeatedly told police you
Speaker 3: had scraped the mushrooms off in an attempt to explain
Speaker 3: why the children were not sick. Agree or disagree.
Speaker 4: I don't think I repeatedly told them, but I did
Speaker 4: tell them.
Speaker 3: You told a number of people you had scraped the
Speaker 3: mushrooms off correct, correct, And I suggest that was an
Speaker 3: attempt to explain why your children were not sick. No,
Speaker 3: you told the lie about feeding leftovers from the beef
Speaker 3: Wellington to your children, I suggest because it gave you
Speaker 3: some distance from a deliberate poisoning.
Speaker 4: I don't see how it could, but I disagree anyway.
Speaker 1: Later, when asked about her claims to have previously foraged
Speaker 1: for mushrooms, including porcini and shittaki, Pattison also took issue
Speaker 1: with the children's own evidence. She said she'd picked mushrooms
Speaker 1: while out on walks with the kids. When asked if
Speaker 1: his mum or dad had ever picked a mushroom. Patterson's
Speaker 1: son told police not that I know of. When Nanette
Speaker 1: Rogers asked her why her daughter had told police they'd
Speaker 1: never seen her pick mushrooms, Patterson said her daughter was
Speaker 1: wrong about that. Patterson also said her children were wrong
Speaker 1: in their recollection of why they were absent from the lunch.
Speaker 1: She said her daughter had asked to go to a
Speaker 1: movie instead, and she said that the daughter was wrong
Speaker 1: when she told police that Patterson had said the lunch
Speaker 1: was to talk about adult stuff. She said her son
Speaker 1: was wrong when he told police the lunch was just
Speaker 1: for the five adults.
Speaker 2: Rogers put it.
Speaker 1: To Patterson that she deliberately excluded the children because she didn't.
Speaker 2: Want them anywhere near the poisoned food.
Speaker 1: Patterson denied that, coming up one big question about a
Speaker 1: lot of little beef Wellington's. Why were they individual beef
Speaker 1: Wellington's anyway. The recipe are in Patterson used was from
Speaker 1: Nagi Mayhashi's cookbook recipe Tin Eats, but that recipe includes
Speaker 1: one large piece of beef which is wrapped in mushrooms
Speaker 1: and pastry and baked, then sliced into individual serves. Patterson
Speaker 1: made individual Wellington's, which she described as looking like pasties.
Speaker 3: Your evidence to this jury is that you use individual
Speaker 3: I fill at stakes because you could not source a
Speaker 3: single long I fill it log.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I couldn't find one anywhere else. That's right.
Speaker 3: I suggest that that's not true. I suggest you could
Speaker 3: have sourced a whole I fill it portion from one
Speaker 3: of the various supermarkets or Butcher's in Leanngatha or Crumbarough.
Speaker 4: I may have been able to, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: But you chose I suggest individual portions. I feel it
Speaker 3: because you wanted to serve individual portions of beef Wellington incorrect.
Speaker 1: Patterson told the jury that she recalled once putting mushrooms
Speaker 1: from an Asian grocery store into her dehydrator.
Speaker 4: Because I remember I remember after using the dehydrator quite
Speaker 4: a few times and noticing how crisp things were when
Speaker 4: they came out after quite a number of hours. I
Speaker 4: remember feeling the mushrooms in the tupperware container and they
Speaker 4: weren't like that. They were quite rubbery, so I thought
Speaker 4: perhaps some air had got in, so I whacked them
Speaker 4: in the dehydrator for a couple of hours. That's my
Speaker 4: memory anyway, and when did you do that? Sometime between
Speaker 4: when I bought them and when I used them, I
Speaker 4: don't know when.
Speaker 3: How many times?
Speaker 4: How many times?
Speaker 3: What did you put them in the dehydrator?
Speaker 4: Just the ones?
Speaker 3: I suggest that you told Sally and Atkinson that you
Speaker 3: did not initially use the mushrooms from the Asian grocer
Speaker 3: because you were worried they would be too overpowering. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think I did say that if.
Speaker 3: They were overpowering, surely you would have been worried about
Speaker 3: them being too overpowering or strong for the beef war Wellington.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't think that. I thought it was the perfect.
Speaker 3: Dish for them to put in your special meal.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Patterson previously told the court she planned to have gastric
Speaker 1: bypass surgery to help her more effectively manage her weight,
Speaker 1: and that she felt she'd need assistance in getting the
Speaker 1: kids to and from school while she recovered from the procedure,
Speaker 1: but she claimed she was embarrassed to admit that to
Speaker 1: her guests. Patterson told the jury a pre surgery assessment
Speaker 1: was booked for September twenty twenty three at a Melbourne
Speaker 1: cosmetic dermatology clinic.
Speaker 3: Now that you've had a chance to read that material. Firstly,
Speaker 3: do you accept that the Enriched Clinic does not offer,
Speaker 3: and has never offered, gastric bypass surgery?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Do you accept that the Enriched Clinic does not offer,
Speaker 3: and has never offered pre surgery assessments relating to gastric
Speaker 3: bypass surgery?
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: And Thirdly, do you accept that the Enriched Clinic only
Speaker 3: conducts examinations and procedures related to the skin and its
Speaker 3: appendages such as hair, are nails.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 1: The trial continues on Thursday. You can read all the
Speaker 1: latest from our reporters on the ground in more Well,
Speaker 1: John Ferguson and Ellie Dudley right now at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot au