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Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

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Speaker 1: It's Thursday, June nineteen, twenty twenty five. Ecstasy on prescription.

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Speaker 1: That's the promise from a major health insurer funding access

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Speaker 1: to a psychotherapy program for post traumatic stress disorder that

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Speaker 1: includes the use of the psychedelic MDMA. That story is

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Speaker 1: live now at the Australian dot com dot a U.

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Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson told lies, but that doesn't make her a killer.

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Speaker 1: That's the core of her defense barrister's argument in the

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Speaker 1: Victorian Supreme Court, where Patterson, a fifty year old mother

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Speaker 1: of two, has pleaded not guilty to murdering three elderly

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Speaker 1: relatives and attempting to murder a fourth. Today the lies

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Speaker 1: of Aaron Patterson and why the defense says they point

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Speaker 1: to her innocentes. Aaron Patterson told lies in the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of a family lunch that left three dead and another

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Speaker 1: gravely ill. She lied about owning a dehydrator. She lied

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Speaker 1: about foraging for mushrooms. She failed to tell the truth

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Speaker 1: about her plans for the future. But the barrister representing

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Speaker 1: her at trial in the Victorian Supreme Court says those

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Speaker 1: lies and omissions point not to guilt, but to her innocence.

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Speaker 2: The lies in the days afterwards, everything she does in

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Speaker 2: the days afterwards doesn't change what her intention was at

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Speaker 2: the time of serving the meal. And a person, you

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Speaker 2: might think, who accidentally made four people very unwell with

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Speaker 2: all of the consequences of that, including the custody of

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Speaker 2: her children on the line, that person has a motive

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Speaker 2: to tell a lot of lies.

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Speaker 1: Those are the words of Colin Mandy sc read for

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Speaker 1: you by a voice actor. Mandy said, despite her lies,

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Speaker 1: Patterson is a person of good character with a strong

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Speaker 1: relationship with her in laws.

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Speaker 2: She was close with the Patterson family and had been

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Speaker 2: from the very earliest days of her relationship with Simon.

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Speaker 2: Evidence is she always had a good relationship with Gail

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Speaker 2: and Don, a close relationship. They treated her like a daughter.

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Speaker 1: The barrister pointed to the evidence of Simon Patterson and

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Speaker 1: his brother Matthew, who both said their parents were active

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Speaker 1: in their lives of Aaron Patterson's two kids, and he

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Speaker 1: said Aaron and Simon were on good terms despite several

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Speaker 1: years of separation until December of twenty twenty two, when

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Speaker 1: there was some tension about child support. Payments.

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Speaker 2: Just pause and think about that, seven years since the

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Speaker 2: official separation, dealing with two children in a respectful way.

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Speaker 2: And if there were the occasional disagreements that you might

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Speaker 2: have seen some evidence of, they were resolved really smoothly.

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Speaker 1: Mandy said. Any negative text messages Aaron sent about the

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Speaker 1: Pattersons to the friends she'd made online were a natural

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Speaker 1: expression of frustration.

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Speaker 2: She didn't mean those things. She regrets the language that

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Speaker 2: she used now that the whole world scrutinizing them. She

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Speaker 2: is ashamed of what she had written. She may well

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Speaker 2: have regretted it two minutes after she'd sent it. And

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Speaker 2: we suggest to you that these messages are a distraction

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Speaker 2: from the real evidence in the case, the evidence that

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Speaker 2: is relevant to these charges.

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Speaker 1: In the days after the launch, when police and the

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Speaker 1: Victorian Department of Health were investigating what had made the

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Speaker 1: Pattersons and the Wilkinsons so sick, Aaron Patterson told police

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Speaker 1: they could find the leftovers in the bin outside her house.

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Speaker 1: She gave them the pin code to the gate so

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Speaker 1: they could get in.

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Speaker 2: Why tell people the leftovers existed at all? Why put

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Speaker 2: the pastry and the mushrooms minus the meat into bin?

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Speaker 2: As a deliberate ruse to somehow divert attention from the activities,

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Speaker 2: and then having to tell the police where they were

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Speaker 2: because she knew they contained death cap mushrooms.

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Speaker 1: The barrister also questioned evidence given by survivor Ian Wilkinson.

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Speaker 1: He said the four lunch guests had been served on

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Speaker 1: gray plates, while Patterson ate off a smaller, red colored plate.

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Speaker 1: Mandy said it was more plausible that Aaron had used

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Speaker 1: a combination of colored plates from different sets.

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Speaker 2: There's no evidence of gray plates. No one says that,

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Speaker 2: apart from Ian, it would make perfect sense for the

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Speaker 2: guests to take the two sets of matching plates for

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Speaker 2: themselves to the table, especially when it wouldn't make any

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Speaker 2: sense to use a different colored plate to identify the

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Speaker 2: unpoisoned parcel when you can make it much clearer and

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Speaker 2: easier by making a mark on the pastry itself.

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Speaker 1: The prosecution alleged Aaron Patterson used posts made on Our

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Speaker 1: Naturalist to locate death caps growing near her home, but

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Speaker 1: Mandy said computer records showed Patterson visited the relevant pages

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Speaker 1: for less than a minute, so this was.

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Speaker 2: Not a person carefully studying this information doing research about it.

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Speaker 2: This was not a deep and abiding interest in this

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Speaker 2: subject matter. It was passing attention in exactly the same

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Speaker 2: way as many of us would do on our own devices.

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Speaker 1: Coming up, What about the motive the Crown hasn't suggested

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Speaker 1: to the jury a motive for Aaron Patterson's alleged murder

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Speaker 1: and attempted murder. Prosecutor Nanette Rodgers did draw the jury's attention, however,

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Speaker 1: to Patterson's distance from her husband Simon's family and her

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Speaker 1: attempt to draw Don and Gail Patterson into her disagreement

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Speaker 1: with their son about child support. Colin Mandy, acting for Patterson, says,

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Speaker 1: not only is there no motive to kill her children's

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Speaker 1: grandparents and great aunt and uncle, but in fact Aaron

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Speaker 1: Patterson had a motivation to keep them alive.

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Speaker 2: Our submission is there was no venom in their relationship

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Speaker 2: and no difficulty in the relationship between Aaron and Don

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Speaker 2: and Gail, and if there had been, there were plenty

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Speaker 2: of witnesses who got called in this case by the

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Speaker 2: prosecution who could have been asked to comment on it.

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Speaker 1: The Crown's case is that Patterson invented a cancer diagnosis

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Speaker 1: to lure the relatives to a lunch when her real

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Speaker 1: motivation was to poison them. The prosecution rubbished Patterson's claim

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Speaker 1: that she didn't have cancer, but she was expecting surgery

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Speaker 1: for a gastric bypass or libersuction. She said she was

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Speaker 1: embarrassed to admit the real reason at the life lunch,

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Speaker 1: where she was asking for their support in managing the

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Speaker 1: kids while she was out of action.

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Speaker 2: She had a problem with binge eating. She was feeling embarrassed, guilty, depressed.

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Speaker 1: The jury heard evidence that the clinic she'd booked into,

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Speaker 1: the Enrich Dermatology Clinic, didn't offer gastric bypass, although it

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Speaker 1: did at the time offer liposuction.

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Speaker 2: Her understanding at the time she booked it was that

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Speaker 2: they offered the full range of weight loss treatment options,

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Speaker 2: including liposuction, gastric bypass, and other surgery. She was mistaken,

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Speaker 2: honestly mistaken.

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Speaker 1: Patterson told Gail Patterson before the lunch that she had

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Speaker 1: a lump on her elbow, and she told the jury

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Speaker 1: that in the past she'd had unfounded worries about cancers,

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Speaker 1: including of the ovaries and the brain.

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Speaker 2: It was not so much the lump on her elbow

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Speaker 2: that was important, but the attention the love, the kindness

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Speaker 2: that she was getting from her support network. Aron often

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Speaker 2: thought she had issues with her health that ended up

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Speaker 2: going nowhere that were never confirmed or diagnosed. That's not

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Speaker 2: made up. That's not a lie. It's there for everyone

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Speaker 2: to see in her medical records and the conversations that

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Speaker 2: she had with other people, including Simon. She didn't have

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Speaker 2: anyone else in the world. That's not a lie. That's

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Speaker 2: the truth. She still had a great relationship with Don

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Speaker 2: and Gaale, that's the truth. And Simon might have been

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Speaker 2: isolating her a bit from the wider Patterson family. Also

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Speaker 2: probably true, and at the very least true that she

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Speaker 2: felt that way about it. Now, with the benefit of hindsight,

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Speaker 2: with the prosecution and a murder trial, criticizing your every misstep,

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Speaker 2: your every lapse in judgment, your every mistake, focusing on

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Speaker 2: every silly thing you did, the mean things you said

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Speaker 2: in text messages, this seems terrible. It's terrible lies exposed

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Speaker 2: for the whole world. But if you put yourselves back

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Speaker 2: there where Erin was in June of twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 2: and if you look at it, we say with objectivity,

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Speaker 2: not with the benefit of hindsight, it might be more understandable.

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Speaker 2: She's not on trial for lying. This is not a

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Speaker 2: court of moral judgment. You can't, you shouldn't take the

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Speaker 2: leap from this lie about a lump on her elbow

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Speaker 2: to finding her guilty of triple murder.

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Speaker 1: The trial continues and you can follow our coverage live

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Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au