Speaker 1: A trial like this sometimes seems like a competition naturally,
Speaker 1: one side against another, like we're competing against each other,
Speaker 1: like a boxing match or a football match, or netball
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. The truth is more like the
Speaker 1: high jump, more like the high jump. This is important.
Speaker 1: Only the prosecution has to get over the bar. Defense
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do anything. Defense doesn't have to jump
Speaker 1: any bar. Aaron Patterson doesn't have to jump any bar
Speaker 1: at all. The prosecution has to clear the bar. And
Speaker 1: that's the highest bar known to the law. And that's
Speaker 1: where you are now.
Speaker 2: To stick with Colin Mandy's sporting analogies, it was the
Speaker 2: final siren on the defense's argument on the innocence of
Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson. Today, her barrister talked to the jury for
Speaker 2: the whole day, telling them that probably and maybe are
Speaker 2: not enough to convict his clients.
Speaker 1: You are at innocent with Aaron Patterson. That's your starting point.
Speaker 1: The starting point is innocence. She is assumed innocent of
Speaker 1: these charges. She doesn't have to prove her innocence to
Speaker 1: you because she is innocent, and it is for the
Speaker 1: prosecution to disprove her account of accidental poisoning beyond reasonable
Speaker 1: doubt before you can move from that position, before you
Speaker 1: can find her guilty of anything.
Speaker 2: He talked about her testimony Asian gross, Aaron's phones, and
Speaker 2: what he said were ridiculous propositions put forward by the prosecution.
Speaker 2: It was a big day and we'll break it all
Speaker 2: down for you. I'm Brook Greebit Craig, and this is
Speaker 2: the Mushroom Cook. It's stayed thirty five of Aaron Patterson's
Speaker 2: murder trial, and I'm here with my colleague, court reporter
Speaker 2: Laura Possella.
Speaker 3: After three days, we've arrived at the end of mister
Speaker 3: Mandy's closing address.
Speaker 2: Yes we have.
Speaker 3: So the jurors are done hearing from witnesses, they're done
Speaker 3: hearing from barristers, and next week, in the ninth week
Speaker 3: of this trial, they'll hear from Justice Christopher Bale. But
Speaker 3: more about that later today. Mister Mandy picked up where
Speaker 3: he left off yesterday with the day after the lunch.
Speaker 2: Yes, he started with the evidence that Aaron was drinking
Speaker 2: coffee on July thirty, and that's the day after that
Speaker 2: deadly meal.
Speaker 3: This evidence came from Erin's son, who told an investigator
Speaker 3: that that morning when he woke up and came into
Speaker 3: the kitchen, he saw his mum drinking coffee, but when
Speaker 3: she was giving evidence, Erin said that she was actually
Speaker 3: drinking tea. Mister Mandy said today, though, that it was
Speaker 3: perfectly reasonable for him to assume she was drinking coffee
Speaker 3: that morning, considering most days he would wake up to
Speaker 3: see her doing that.
Speaker 2: Now, moving on to Aaron driving her son to a
Speaker 2: flying lesson that afternoon, mister Mandy told the jury the
Speaker 2: prosecution's case was that Erin was faking being ill, but
Speaker 2: he disputed this, saying why would she go on this
Speaker 2: journey If she was faking being unwell, she would go
Speaker 2: to bed.
Speaker 3: Alistairs may remember that it was on this journey to
Speaker 3: Tiab that Erin said she had to pull over on
Speaker 3: the side of the road to go to the toilet
Speaker 3: in a bush because she was experiencing diarrhea. She said.
Speaker 3: When they later stopped at a service station, she went
Speaker 3: into the toilet to dispose of the tissues she had
Speaker 3: used to clean herself up. CCTV footage shows that she
Speaker 3: only spent nine seconds in the toilet. In its closing
Speaker 3: address earlier this week, the prosecution argued that if Erin
Speaker 3: really did have diarrhea that day, she would have spent
Speaker 3: more time in there, at the very least to wash
Speaker 3: her hands. But today mister Mandy made a point of
Speaker 3: saying that the prosecution didn't even ask her in cross
Speaker 3: examination what she was doing in those nine seconds while
Speaker 3: she was in the toilet.
Speaker 2: Now moving on to Erin leaving Lean at the hospital
Speaker 2: after five minutes on July thirty one, Mister Mandy said
Speaker 2: she left because she was not prepared for what she
Speaker 2: walked into. These are his words, but not his voice.
Speaker 1: An extremely intensive five minute interaction where she was told
Speaker 1: that she would be admitted and transferred to a different
Speaker 1: hospital in Melbourne. Doctor Foote told her that that's what
Speaker 1: needed to happen, so she was not refusing treatment. She
Speaker 1: was saying there were things she needed to do before
Speaker 1: she could be admitted and transferred. She had diarrhea, she
Speaker 1: was dehydrated, but she was still functioning, and she was
Speaker 1: plainly struggling to process what she was being told and
Speaker 1: her mind turned to the practical considerations.
Speaker 3: Mister Mandy then took the jury to Erin's second presentation
Speaker 3: to hospital about an hour and a half later. He
Speaker 3: reiterated again that on the prosecution case Erin was faking illness,
Speaker 3: but he said his client was reluctant to receive treatment
Speaker 3: that day because of her history of hating hospitals and
Speaker 3: discharging herself against medical advice. He told the jury that
Speaker 3: what she did that day was actually not consistent at
Speaker 3: all with what a person faking illness would do. In
Speaker 3: another theatrical moment from mister Mandy, he raised his arms
Speaker 3: and said the following.
Speaker 1: The allegation is that she was reluctant to be admitted
Speaker 1: to be hooked up to medications because she was pretending
Speaker 1: to be sick. But that's a contradictory argument. Count possibly
Speaker 1: makes sense if you're pretending to be sick, if you
Speaker 1: got to be saying to the medical staff, hook me up,
Speaker 1: pump me full of drugs, I am very, very sick.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 2: Now moving on to the Asian grocer, mister Mandy said
Speaker 2: it would have been remarkable if Aaron gave everyone the
Speaker 2: exact same account as to what happened.
Speaker 3: The jury has previously heard that in the week after
Speaker 3: the lunch there was a medical investigation, a health investigation,
Speaker 3: a child protection investigation, and a police investigation all under
Speaker 3: way at the same time. Mister Mandy explained that there
Speaker 3: were many people asking Aaron many questions about where the
Speaker 3: mushrooms in the beef Wellingtons had come from. In a
Speaker 3: previous episode, we ran through all the varying accounts Aaron
Speaker 3: gave about the location of the Asian grocer. Today, mister
Speaker 3: Mandy explained where those accounts did vary.
Speaker 1: Imagine that if they all agreed exactly that she used
Speaker 1: the same words and said the same exactly the same things,
Speaker 1: it would be firstly totally unrealistic and the prosecution would
Speaker 1: probably argue in those circumstances that it was very suspicious
Speaker 1: that someone had such a well scripted account of what
Speaker 1: was going on.
Speaker 3: Mister Mandy then reminded the jury that during the Department
Speaker 3: of Health's investigation, an environmental health officer was never asked
Speaker 3: to check any Asian grosses England Waverley. This was despite
Speaker 3: Senior Public Health Advisor Sally Ane Atkinson telling the court
Speaker 3: that she remembered telling this employee to check that suburb.
Speaker 3: Mister Mandy said today that one of these two witnesses
Speaker 3: must have been honestly mistaken.
Speaker 2: Mister Mandy then went on to speak about Phone A
Speaker 2: and Phone B as another reminder for our listeners. Phone
Speaker 2: A was Erin's usual phone, which the prosecution alleged she
Speaker 2: concealed from police, while Phone B was the dummy phone
Speaker 2: she set up to hand to police.
Speaker 3: But mister Mandy questioned today why Erin would go to
Speaker 3: the effort of setting up Phone B just to hand
Speaker 3: it to police as a dummy phone. He said, as
Speaker 3: soon as investigators looked at the phone, they would have
Speaker 3: realized it was not her usual phone. He reminded the
Speaker 3: jury of her evidence that she set up Phone B
Speaker 3: because Phonne A was damaged and she wanted to change devices.
Speaker 3: This is what he said about the allegation from the
Speaker 3: prosecution that Erin concealed Phone A.
Speaker 1: If the intent was to conceal the existence of Phone A,
Speaker 1: why continue using it? Better yet, why not get rid
Speaker 1: of it at a much earlier stage. She had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to dispose of it after she got home from hospital,
Speaker 1: why not take her to the tip. If she had
Speaker 1: planned the cold calculated murders that the Crown says she committed,
Speaker 1: deliberate murders, the Crown says she's planning at least from
Speaker 1: twenty eight April and had incriminating searches on her phone.
Speaker 1: This would have been part of the plan. Surely it
Speaker 1: would have been destroyed.
Speaker 3: He said. The fact Aaron continued to use phone A
Speaker 3: after the lunch was more consistent with her account, telling
Speaker 3: the jury that the prosecution were only alleging she concealed
Speaker 3: Phone A to explain why certain evidence in the case
Speaker 3: did not exist. He did admit that factory resetting phone
Speaker 3: B was a stupid thing that his client did, but
Speaker 3: he said it remained consistent with her panic state of mind.
Speaker 1: His honor will direct you, as a matter of law,
Speaker 1: that the law recognizes that there might be all sorts
Speaker 1: of reasons why a person engages in conduct that to
Speaker 1: everyone else in the outside world may make them look guilty.
Speaker 1: There are all sorts of reasons why an innocent person
Speaker 1: can engage in that type of conduct, like dumping the
Speaker 1: dehydrator and lying. And you now have those reasons. Aaron
Speaker 1: got into the witness box and told you she did
Speaker 1: those things because she panicked when confronted with the terrible possibility,
Speaker 1: terrible realization that her actions had caused the illnesses of
Speaker 1: people that she loved. It doesn't excuse what she did,
Speaker 1: not making an excuse about it. You can't jump from
Speaker 1: there to what the crown wants you to conclude from
Speaker 1: those items of evidence.
Speaker 2: Mister Mandy then turned to discussing Aaron as a witness.
Speaker 2: He reiterated that she did not have to give evidence.
Speaker 1: She subjected herself to lengthy cross examination and our submission
Speaker 1: to you and you would probably agree that the way
Speaker 1: she answered questions was careful, even pedantic, and you might
Speaker 1: think that's a very sensible way of approaching things. If
Speaker 1: you are going to be cross examined for six days,
Speaker 1: it is difficult to imagine a situation where you would
Speaker 1: be placing yourself under such an incredible amount of scrutiny.
Speaker 1: But she still made the decision. She didn't have to
Speaker 1: do that, and when she chose to do it, she
Speaker 1: made that decision as an innocent person, because that's what
Speaker 1: she is right now and has been throughout the trial.
Speaker 1: Presumed innocent of all the charges.
Speaker 2: Mister Mandy said she to the truth even when it
Speaker 2: was deeply embarrassing, and had to admit she told lies.
Speaker 2: He declared that his client came out of the extensive
Speaker 2: cross examination unscathed.
Speaker 1: Her account remained coherent and consistent. Day after day, even
Speaker 1: when challenged rapid fire from multiple angles repeatedly. So the
Speaker 1: significance of her evidence is this that his Honor will
Speaker 1: give you a direction of law about the conclusions that
Speaker 1: you might reach from erin giving evidence. First, if you
Speaker 1: think her evidence was true, you must find her not
Speaker 1: guilty of all of the charges. Second, if you're not
Speaker 1: sure whether her evidence was true, but think it might be,
Speaker 1: then you will have a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's
Speaker 1: case and you would find her not guilty of all
Speaker 1: the charges. Third, if that's not enough that you preferred
Speaker 1: the prosecution case to her evidence, balancing those two things, nah,
Speaker 1: prosecution a little bit better than aaron, that's not sufficient,
Speaker 1: because that would be finding that the prosecution case is
Speaker 1: preferable to the defense case. And it's not a question
Speaker 1: in this case. I'll come back to this in a minute,
Speaker 1: not a question of balancing two things.
Speaker 3: It was at this point that mister Mandy took the
Speaker 3: jury to the convoluted and ridiculous propositions he said were
Speaker 3: made by the prosecution that we flagged at the top
Speaker 3: of the episode. He said that there were at least
Speaker 3: four telling the jury that it was ridiculous that Aaron
Speaker 3: would commit murder without any motive to do so, Ridiculous
Speaker 3: that she would use cancer as a lie to get
Speaker 3: her guests to attend her lunch, ridiculous that she expected
Speaker 3: the guests to take her secrets about her medical issues
Speaker 3: to the grave with them, and ridiculous that she would
Speaker 3: push ahead with her plan despite knowing she would be
Speaker 3: in the spotlight as the cook. He then borrowed a
Speaker 3: metaphor used by Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers in her closing
Speaker 3: address earlier this week. She referred to the case as
Speaker 3: a jigsaw puzzle that they must piece together. But mister
Speaker 3: Mandy said today, to force the evidence to fit the
Speaker 3: image which on the puzzle box was like working backwards
Speaker 3: from a place of assumed guilt.
Speaker 1: You can't force jigsaw puzzle pieces together when puzzle pieces
Speaker 1: don't fit naturally. When you are making the picture, You've
Speaker 1: got the wrong picture, the wrong piece in the wrong spot.
Speaker 1: It is not fitting naturally into that gap.
Speaker 2: As he approached the end of his closing address, he
Speaker 2: told the juris they could not decide the case by
Speaker 2: asking themselves whose case is better.
Speaker 3: It was at this point that he mentioned the sporting
Speaker 3: analogy you heard At the top of the episode, he
Speaker 3: spoke to the jury about the legal principles our criminal
Speaker 3: justice system relies on, including the standard of proof beyond
Speaker 3: reasonable doubt. He said these principles of a criminal trial
Speaker 3: were like the Golden rules which protect us all from
Speaker 3: being wrongfully convicted. He then launched in to his final
Speaker 3: statement to the jury.
Speaker 1: If you think that it's possible that Erin deliberately poisoned
Speaker 1: the meal, you must find her not guilty. If you
Speaker 1: think that maybe Erin deliberately poison the meal, you must
Speaker 1: find her not guilty. If you think that she probably
Speaker 1: deliberately poisoned the meal, you must find her not guilty.
Speaker 1: If you think that it's possible that she intended to
Speaker 1: kill or cause really serious injury to Don or Gail
Speaker 1: or Heather, you must find her not guilty. If you
Speaker 1: think maybe she intended those things, you must find her
Speaker 1: not guilty. If you think probably she intended those things,
Speaker 1: you must find her not guilty. And if you think
Speaker 1: that it's possible Aarin intended to kill Anne, you have
Speaker 1: to find her not guilty. Maybe she intended to kill Anne,
Speaker 1: not guilty, Probably not guilty. If you think at the
Speaker 1: end of your deliberations, taking into account the arguments that
Speaker 1: we've made that it is a possibility that this was
Speaker 1: an accident, a reasonable possibility, you must find her not guilty.
Speaker 1: And if you think that it is a reasonable possibility
Speaker 1: that her evidence was true, you must find her not guilty.
Speaker 1: And our submission to you is the prosecution can't get
Speaker 1: over that high bar of beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2: And with that, mister Mandy was done. So after eight
Speaker 2: weeks and more than fifty witnesses, the jury has now
Speaker 2: been sent out to rest before Justice Bill delivers his charge.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned the word rest their book, and that's
Speaker 3: because the jury have a long weekend. They won't be
Speaker 3: required to come back until early next week. So Justice
Speaker 3: Bill told them to actually think about it like a
Speaker 3: second Easter. I think they were very relieved to have
Speaker 3: some time off before they begin their deliberations next week.
Speaker 2: You're right about that, Laura, But in the meantime, go
Speaker 2: to the mushroomcook dot com dot au for more