Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, June eleven, twenty twenty five. Tasmanians are off
Speaker 1: to the voting booths just over a year after the
Speaker 1: last election. That's after Premier Jeremy Rockliffe lost the confidence
Speaker 1: of Parliament to other members of the governing Liberal Party
Speaker 1: were willing to step up as premier to avoid an election,
Speaker 1: but the party room decided to send voters back to
Speaker 1: the ballot box. That story's live now at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot You accused mushroom murderer Aaron Patterson says
Speaker 1: her husband Simon was sarcastic and wrong about his recollections
Speaker 1: of the days after the fatal lunch which killed his
Speaker 1: parents and aunt. Today we take you inside the Victorian
Speaker 1: Supreme Court to hear voice actors re enact Patterson's cross examination.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Nanette Rogers sc Did Aaron Patterson have bolimia? Did
Speaker 1: she have diarrhea? The mushroom trial has taken a distinctly
Speaker 1: forensic tone, as the cross examination of Aaron Patterson sees
Speaker 1: Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rodgers sc grilling Patterson, a fifty year
Speaker 1: old mother of two, about exactly how she managed to
Speaker 1: survive a lunch that resulted in the deaths of three
Speaker 1: elderly relatives and another spending weeks in hospital. Patterson has
Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one
Speaker 1: of attempted murder over the lunch in July twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: In her examination in chief, led by her senior barrister,
Speaker 1: Colin Mandy sc Aaron, Patterson last week told the jury
Speaker 1: that after consuming beef Wellington, she vomited. She said at
Speaker 1: the time this was because she had bolimia. Here's what
Speaker 1: Patterson told the court last Wednesday. We've used voice actors
Speaker 1: throughout this episode to bring you the words spoken in court.
Speaker 1: Patterson said that after her lunch guests left, she got
Speaker 1: stuck into the orange cake Gail Patterson, one of the guests,
Speaker 1: had brought.
Speaker 2: I had a piece of cake, and then another piece
Speaker 2: of cake, and then another. How many pieces of cake
Speaker 2: did you have?
Speaker 1: All of it? How much had been left?
Speaker 2: Probably a good two thirds.
Speaker 3: Of it was left. And what happened after you ate
Speaker 3: the cake?
Speaker 2: I felt sick, I felt overfull, So I went to
Speaker 2: the toilets and brought it back up again.
Speaker 1: Here's how that went. On Tuesday, ten June, in cross
Speaker 1: examination by Nanette Rogers.
Speaker 3: Your evidence to this jury is that sometime that afternoon,
Speaker 3: on the twenty ninth of July, that you cause yourself
Speaker 3: to vomit. Correct?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 3: Is it your evidence that the vomit was partly constituted
Speaker 3: by the beef Wellington? Correct?
Speaker 2: I have no idea what was in the vomit at all? Well,
Speaker 2: it's how could I it's vomit unless you can see
Speaker 2: a bean or a piece of corn.
Speaker 3: Well, you didn't have corn at the lunch.
Speaker 2: That was an example.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you did not tell a single medical
Speaker 3: person that you had vomited after the lunch on the
Speaker 3: afternoon of twenty nine July.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: I did not do that.
Speaker 3: I suggest that that is something you would have told
Speaker 3: them if it were true. Correct or incorrect?
Speaker 2: Incorrect?
Speaker 3: Do you say it's incorrect because of your embarrassment?
Speaker 2: I say it's incorrect because it's what happened.
Speaker 1: Roger's probed Patterson's accounts around the time of the lunch
Speaker 1: that she had eaten about half of her portion, as
Speaker 1: opposed to in her evidence in chief when she said
Speaker 1: she'd eaten a small amount, maybe a quarter or a third.
Speaker 3: I also suggest that for the first time, you've told
Speaker 3: the jury that you vomited after the lunch.
Speaker 2: Correct, That is the first time I told the jury.
Speaker 3: I suggest you're trying to minimize how much you ate.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I suggest that what you've told the jury about only
Speaker 3: eating a quarter or a third and about vomiting are
Speaker 3: all lies. No, you're trying to make it sound like
Speaker 3: the lunch guests say more than you did. Correct or incorrect. No,
Speaker 3: And you're lying about throwing up or vomiting to try
Speaker 3: and account for why you didn't get seriously ill. Correct.
Speaker 2: I wish that was true, but it's not.
Speaker 1: Patterson attended the Lean Gather Hospital on the Monday after
Speaker 1: the lunch, telling them she had gastro and needed some fluids.
Speaker 1: She wasn't as seriously ill as her lunch guests, and
Speaker 1: when the medical staff told her she'd need to go
Speaker 1: to Melbourne for treatment, Patterson left the hospital saying she
Speaker 1: had to pack her daughter's ballet bag and feed her animals.
Speaker 3: I want to suggest to you that you were stressed
Speaker 3: when you're at the hospit all on this first presentation
Speaker 3: correct or incorrect.
Speaker 2: I probably was very stressed, Yes.
Speaker 3: And I suggest that the reason you were stressed was
Speaker 3: because doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning for the lunch
Speaker 3: guests correct or incorrect.
Speaker 2: That definitely was a cause of anxiety.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you were shocked that the doctors were
Speaker 3: onto death cap mushrooms so quickly.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put it like that.
Speaker 3: How would you put it?
Speaker 2: I was anxious at the idea that we might have
Speaker 2: eaten those things.
Speaker 3: I'm suggesting that you were shocked that the doctors were
Speaker 3: on to death cap mushrooms so quickly correct or incorrect, incorrect,
Speaker 3: and you were worried that you're going to get caught
Speaker 3: correct or incorrect, incorrect, And further that you weren't prepared
Speaker 3: to answer questions about why death cap mushrooms are in
Speaker 3: the meal correct or incorrect.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone ever tried to ask me that question,
Speaker 2: so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Speaker 3: When you left the hospital, you did not make any
Speaker 3: attempt to collect your children correct or incorrect.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: They had no efforts to have them collected after you
Speaker 3: left the hospital shortly after eight o five am. Correct
Speaker 3: or incorrect?
Speaker 2: I did eventually, That's why they went to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Patterson said she'd be back shortly, but the jury has
Speaker 1: heard she returned more than nineteen minutes later. Rogers wanted
Speaker 1: to know why she would leave, even though doctors had
Speaker 1: told her they suspected the other patients had suffered death
Speaker 1: cap mushroom poisoning.
Speaker 3: Now, I suggest that you knew that your life was
Speaker 3: not threatened at this point. Agree or disagree.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say I knew. I didn't think it was.
Speaker 3: I suggest that your behavior at leaving Lee and Gatha
Speaker 3: Hospital a few minutes after you'd presented there was because
Speaker 3: you knew that you had not consumed death cap mushrooms.
Speaker 3: Agree or disagree.
Speaker 2: I didn't think any of us had, But it wasn't
Speaker 2: why I was leaving.
Speaker 3: No, I suggest that you also left when confronted by
Speaker 3: the fact that medical staff had identified death cap mushrooms
Speaker 3: as a reason for the illnesses.
Speaker 2: No, that's not why I left.
Speaker 3: I said, Yes, you panicked and absconded because you knew
Speaker 3: that your use of death cat mushrooms in the meal
Speaker 3: had been uncovered. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: Disagree?
Speaker 1: Patterson recalled Dr Chris Webster telling her her two children
Speaker 1: needed to be taken to a medical facility, but she
Speaker 1: was reluctant to worry the children.
Speaker 3: Did he make it clear that your children's lives were
Speaker 3: at risk?
Speaker 2: He said, they can be scared and alive or dead.
Speaker 2: That's what he said.
Speaker 3: Did he make it clear that your children's lives were
Speaker 3: at risk?
Speaker 2: I guess he made it clear that he thought they
Speaker 2: might be at risk.
Speaker 3: In the face of that on your evidence, you were
Speaker 3: reluctant to tell the children.
Speaker 2: I was trying to make sense of what was going
Speaker 2: on and what doctor Webster was saying to me, and
Speaker 2: I thought they can be scared and alive or dead.
Speaker 2: I thought that was a pretty bizarre thing to say.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just what he said, but he was
Speaker 2: yelling it at me as what I thought. I've since
Speaker 2: discovered that's his inside voice, but at the time I
Speaker 2: thought he was yelling at me. So yeah, it was
Speaker 2: all making me quite anxious.
Speaker 3: You were reluctant I suggest to have your children medically assessed.
Speaker 3: Correct or incorrect?
Speaker 2: Incorrect? I wanted to understand what the concerns were and
Speaker 2: why he thought they might be at risk. I wanted
Speaker 2: to understand it first.
Speaker 1: Coming up, Patterson says her sarcastic husband is wrong. On Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson took issue with some of the evidence given
Speaker 1: by her husband, Simon Patterson. Nanette Rogers asked if she
Speaker 1: recalled Simon Patterson's evidence that his wife told him that
Speaker 1: when she went home to feed the animals, she'd laid
Speaker 1: down on the floor and fallen as sleep.
Speaker 3: Do you deny saying that you fell asleep for about
Speaker 3: forty five minutes? To Simon Patterson, yeah, I do. Is
Speaker 3: your evidence that you lay down for a bit when
Speaker 3: you got home for a while? What time did you
Speaker 3: lie down?
Speaker 2: No idea?
Speaker 3: How long did you lie down for?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's untrue, isn't it. No, it's untrue that you lay down. No,
Speaker 3: surely that's the last thing you would do in these circumstances.
Speaker 2: Might be the last thing you'd do. But it was
Speaker 2: something I did.
Speaker 3: After you'd been told by medical staff that you had
Speaker 3: potentially ingested a life threatening poison. Isn't the last thing
Speaker 3: that you would do is to lie down in those circumstances.
Speaker 2: They didn't tell me it was life threatening.
Speaker 1: Patterson agreed she was away from the hospital for an
Speaker 1: hour and forty minutes.
Speaker 3: I suggest that in this period of time, you were
Speaker 3: trying to work out how to manage the situation that
Speaker 3: you now found yourself in correct or incorrect, incorrect. You
Speaker 3: had not expected doctors to detect the death cap mushroom
Speaker 3: poisoning so quickly correct or incorrect incorrect. You thought it
Speaker 3: would be treated, I suggest as just a case of
Speaker 3: food poisoning correct or incorrect, incorrect. Once you were told
Speaker 3: that the medical staff had detected death cap mushrooms or
Speaker 3: suspected it, you had to think quickly correct or incorrect,
Speaker 3: incorrect to try and explain why you were not sick
Speaker 3: correct incorrect, to try and cover your tracks correct or incorrect, incorrect.
Speaker 3: And that's what you spent the one hour and forty
Speaker 3: minutes doing while you're away from the hospital. Agree or disagree?
Speaker 2: What are you saying I was doing.
Speaker 3: Thinking about ways to cover your tracks.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, you're saying I spent an hour and a
Speaker 2: half thinking. Is that what you're suggesting. I'm sure I
Speaker 2: did some thinking at that time, but it was not
Speaker 2: about covering my tracks.
Speaker 1: Patterson was asked about Simon Patterson's evidence earlier in the trial.
Speaker 1: He said that when they spoke on the phone that morning,
Speaker 1: Aaron said she was in ten to pick up the
Speaker 1: children from their school on Philip Island, ninety minutes drive away,
Speaker 1: to bring them to hospital. Simon Patterson told the jury,
Speaker 1: but when he said he was glad Erin was feeling
Speaker 1: healthy enough to make the drive to pick up the kids,
Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson had paused before agreeing Simon should go and
Speaker 1: get them instead.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you pause because you realize that if
Speaker 3: you insisted on going to pick up the children, that
Speaker 3: that would undermine your being unwell. No, disagree.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if I paused or not, so
Speaker 2: I can't really agree with what you're saying. But the
Speaker 2: only thing I remember out of that interaction was when
Speaker 2: he said, you know, I'm glad to hear you well
Speaker 2: enough to drive to the school. I remember he said
Speaker 2: it in a really sarcastic tone that put me off
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 3: So it might be that you paused. It may be
Speaker 3: because of his supposed sarcasm. Is that your evidence?
Speaker 2: I do remember the sarcasm. It was really off putting
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you making this up as you go along?
Speaker 3: Miss Patterson?
Speaker 1: Nolsone was asked about why her blood tests when she
Speaker 1: was at Monash Medical Center seemed within or close to
Speaker 1: the normal range.
Speaker 3: I suggest that you were not seriously unwell because you
Speaker 3: did not consume even a minute amount of deathcap mushrooms
Speaker 3: at the lunch. What do you say?
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: If I did or I didn't, you were not suffering
Speaker 3: from deathcap mushroom poisoning. Correct or incorrect.
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: You deliberately tried to make it seem like you were
Speaker 3: correct or incorrect incorrect. You did that because you knew
Speaker 3: you had not eaten deathcap mushrooms correct or incorrect incorrect,
Speaker 3: and you knew how suspicious it would look if you
Speaker 3: did not seem sick like your guests correct or incorrect, incorrect.
Speaker 1: The trial continues and you can follow our coverage live
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au and right here
Speaker 1: on the front