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What the jury didn't know in Erin Patterson murder trial · The Front

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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: A bonus episode of The Front for you today, fresh
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  Speaker 1: from the Victorian Supreme Court. The secret details about Aaron
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  Speaker 1: Patterson we've been fighting to bring you. A Victorian Supreme
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  Speaker 1: Court judge has lifted a suppression order on the matter
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  Speaker 1: of the King versus Aaron Patterson. The convicted triple murderer
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  Speaker 1: was suspected of attempting to poison her husband's Simon multiple
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  Speaker 1: times before she served of beef Wellington laced with deathcap
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  Speaker 1: mushrooms to his parents, aunt and uncle. The jury didn't
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  Speaker 1: get to hear about documents found on Aaron Patterson's computer
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  Speaker 1: and a social media post that the Crown said pointed
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  Speaker 1: to her guilt. Today, what the suppressed evidence says and
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  Speaker 1: why it's been secret. In the studio with me is
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  Speaker 1: journalist Ellie Dudley, who covered every day of this trial.
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  Speaker 1: The information that is now able to be published change
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  Speaker 1: is really the way we think about Aaron Patterson, and
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  Speaker 1: it's been information that I've had in my head throughout
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  Speaker 1: this trial. So of you because we listened to the
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  Speaker 1: pre trial discussion and then we obviously listened to the
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  Speaker 1: whole trial, including what was said in the absence of
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  Speaker 1: the jury. Let's talk about what was heard in the
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  Speaker 1: Victorian Supreme Court during the trial, but in the absence
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  Speaker 1: of the jury. First, first of all, the cat post.
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  Speaker 2: What's that. We've got to start with the cat posts.
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  Speaker 3: So as part of the Victorian Supreme Court trial, we
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  Speaker 3: heard a lot about Aaron Patterson's presence online. We know
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  Speaker 3: that she had multiple Facebook accounts, she had a lot
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  Speaker 3: of online friends, and there was a post that she
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  Speaker 3: made on Facebook talking about how mushrooms had poisoned her cat,
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  Speaker 3: basically an SOS post saying help, I've accidentally poisoned my
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  Speaker 3: cat with mushrooms. Now, the bizarre thing about that post
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  Speaker 3: is that Aaron Patterson didn't have a cat. So that
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  Speaker 3: was something that came up in pre trial and then
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  Speaker 3: again in trial, but was ultimately ruled out of the
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  Speaker 3: trial and then didn't form any part of the evidence
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  Speaker 3: that was heard by the jury.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the judge agreed with Council for Aaron Patterson that
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  Speaker 1: the evidence of that post was a screenshot that had
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  Speaker 1: been taken by someone else. The original post on Aaron
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  Speaker 1: Patterson's phone, for example, hadn't been located. Of course, during
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  Speaker 1: the trial, people who followed it will know that there
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  Speaker 1: were a lot of phones going on. There were phones disappearing,
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  Speaker 1: there were SIM cards being changed. Aaron Patterson's primary phone
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  Speaker 1: has never been found by police, nor has her primary
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  Speaker 1: SIM card. So this is a pretty significant thing that
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  Speaker 1: the media knew, the lawyers knew, the judge knew, but
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  Speaker 1: the jury didn't know. Of course, they convicted her anyway,
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  Speaker 1: so this wasn't necessary for them to be persuaded that
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  Speaker 1: she was a triple murderer. But this is a post
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  Speaker 1: that she made about an imaginary cat who'd consumed some
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  Speaker 1: ushrooms that seemed quite real, And why would she have
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  Speaker 1: made that post.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the prosecution tried to get it into evidence again,
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  Speaker 3: or they suggested that they might try to get it
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  Speaker 3: into evidence again during trial. It came up in pretrol
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  Speaker 3: thenage again during trial because they wanted to show that
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  Speaker 3: she was obsessed with the poisonous elements of mushrooms. So
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  Speaker 3: during trial, her defense counsel and her when she gave
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  Speaker 3: evidence on the stand, she said that she.
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  Speaker 2: Was interested in mushrooms.
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  Speaker 3: She said that she read book abou Mushrooms, she went
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  Speaker 3: foraging for mushrooms, and she showed an interest in it.
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  Speaker 2: But what the Crown wanted to show with this post.
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  Speaker 3: Was that she was specifically interested in the poisonous elements
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  Speaker 3: of mushrooms.
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  Speaker 2: So that's why they wanted to get it into evidence.
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  Speaker 1: So right up until the trial began, Aaron Patterson was
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  Speaker 1: also facing charges of attempted murder relating not to Ian Wilkinson,
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  Speaker 1: who was the fourth lunch guest, the only one who survived.
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  Speaker 1: She was ultimately convicted of that, but this was in
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  Speaker 1: relation to her husband, Simon Patterson. What did she allegedly
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  Speaker 1: do to Simon?
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  Speaker 2: So she was facing.
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  Speaker 3: Four attempted murder charges for attempting to kill her estranged husband,
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  Speaker 3: Simon Patterson. Now those charges were ultimately dropped. It was
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  Speaker 3: something that the jury was told about on the.
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  Speaker 2: First day of trial.
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  Speaker 3: The judge said to them, you know, you might have
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  Speaker 3: read in the media that their attempted murder charges in
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  Speaker 3: relation to Simon Patterson just sudding you know, they've been dropped,
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  Speaker 3: And that is.
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  Speaker 2: All the jury heard about in pre trial.
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  Speaker 3: A lot more information relating to those attempted murder trials
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  Speaker 3: was given and a lot more evidence was given, and
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  Speaker 3: so basically what he said and based off the evidence
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  Speaker 3: of others given in pre trial, was that there were
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  Speaker 3: many times where Aaron Patterson tried to kill him using
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  Speaker 3: different meals, things like curry possibly cookies. I think at
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  Speaker 3: one point where he ended up in hospital. One point
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  Speaker 3: he was paralyzed, he had part of his bow cutout.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, really serious things. And so then when he
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  Speaker 3: his family went down, he thought, oh my gosh, Aaron
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  Speaker 3: Patterson has killed my family. She's poisoned my family.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was very suspicious that his wife was trying
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  Speaker 1: to kill him. He even kept a spreadsheet of some
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  Speaker 1: of these instances. There was a curry rap which is
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  Speaker 1: I will never be able to eat a curry up again,
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  Speaker 1: because you know, he suffered quite badly. He was very
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  Speaker 1: seriously unwell. The intriguing thing about this is that Simon
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  Speaker 1: Patterson suspected this of Aaron. He was invited to the
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  Speaker 1: Mushroom lunch. He sent her a text message of the
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  Speaker 1: night before the lunch saying I'm not coming. She responded
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  Speaker 1: quite angrily saying, well, you know I want you to come.
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  Speaker 1: I expect you to be there. He didn't show up,
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  Speaker 1: but he did watch his mother and father, Auntie and
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  Speaker 1: uncle go to this lunch. He obviously didn't think that
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  Speaker 1: she was going to poison other people.
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  Speaker 3: No, no, And when he was giving evidence, he said
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  Speaker 3: that he decided not to attend that lunch because he
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  Speaker 3: didn't think it was appropriate. He made the best decision
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  Speaker 3: of his life to not attend and this lunch. The
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  Speaker 3: other thing that was interesting from pre trial is that
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  Speaker 3: evidence was given by the daughter of Ian and Heather Wilkinson,
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  Speaker 3: Bruce Dubois. She said that Simon told her or she
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  Speaker 3: found out while her mum was dying in hospital and
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  Speaker 3: her father almost died. She found out that Simon had
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  Speaker 3: suspected that Aaron had tried.
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  Speaker 2: To kill him.
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  Speaker 3: There was also evidence given in pretrial that Simon had
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  Speaker 3: told his brother, he had told his cousin, he had
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  Speaker 3: told his dad, he had told his doctor about issues
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  Speaker 3: that he had had falling ill after eating these meals
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  Speaker 3: that Aaron Patterson had prepared for him. He had changed
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  Speaker 3: his end of life plans to exclude Aaron Patterson because
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  Speaker 3: he had been concerned that she was.
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  Speaker 2: Trying to kill him.
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  Speaker 3: So incredibly interesting evidence, evidence that would have been quite
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  Speaker 3: interesting to a jury had these charges not been dropped.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up after the break the media's frantic efforts behind
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  Speaker 1: the scenes to bring you this information? Why did the
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  Speaker 1: judge make that suppression order?
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  Speaker 3: So the interim suppression order was made to protect a
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  Speaker 3: possible retrial. The suppression order was only made in the
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  Speaker 3: instance of a guilty verdict being reached, So.
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  Speaker 2: That would mean that if Aaron Patterson decided that.
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  Speaker 3: She wanted to appeal the guilty verdict and that could
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  Speaker 3: possibly lead to a retrial, it meant that any future
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  Speaker 3: jury would be protected from this information getting out.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: When that interim suppression order was announced by the judge,
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  Speaker 3: there was a frantic scramble with journalists in the room.
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  Speaker 2: Morewell, we all immediately.
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  Speaker 3: Hopped on the phone with our lawyers to say, hold on,
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  Speaker 3: can he do this?
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  Speaker 2: Can he do this? And in the end he could.
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  Speaker 2: It's very unusual.
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  Speaker 1: I've never heard of anything like this happening before, because
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  Speaker 1: when a person is found not guilty, there's really no
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  Speaker 1: appeal right. The crown can't really appeal that the juries had.
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  Speaker 1: This says, if someone is found guilty, then of course
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  Speaker 1: we proceed to sentence sik submissions, but there is the
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  Speaker 1: possibility for that person to appeal. They might appeal that
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  Speaker 1: the jury's verdict was unsafe, that there was some sort
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  Speaker 1: of misconduct during the trial, that the judge instructed.
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  Speaker 2: The jury wrongly.
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  Speaker 1: But any future trial would be a very long way
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  Speaker 1: down the road. If you are going to let's say
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson did appeal, she would have to go to
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  Speaker 1: the Court of Criminal Appeal in Victoria and convince them
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  Speaker 1: that something had gone wrong in this trial that justified
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  Speaker 1: the verdict being set aside. Then a new trial would
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  Speaker 1: be created. There'd be a new jurisworn in, or perhaps
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  Speaker 1: it would be judge alone. So that's a long way
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  Speaker 1: down the road. And that's ultimately what the media lawyers argued.
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  Speaker 1: We all banded together and got a senior council in
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  Speaker 1: court to represent us, and ultimately that was successful. The
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  Speaker 1: judge agreed that any future trial is a long way
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  Speaker 1: down the track.
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  Speaker 3: And as part of that, I think it was part
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  Speaker 3: of that argument, and it was part of the discussion
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  Speaker 3: that we were having in the media at the time,
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  Speaker 3: was that it was this interim suppression order that was
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  Speaker 3: made over a verdict that hadn't yet been reached, over
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  Speaker 3: an appeal that hadn't yet been lodged, let alone granted
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  Speaker 3: based on a retrial that we hadn't even gotten to yet,
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, it formed a big part of that argument.
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  Speaker 2: During the trial.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, your reporting was completely neutral, and so was
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  Speaker 1: all the reporting that we published. But knowing this information,
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  Speaker 1: did you think she'd done it?
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  Speaker 2: It's hard, right, because when.
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  Speaker 3: You're reporting on a trial like this, you get asked
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  Speaker 3: constantly do you think she did it?
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  Speaker 2: Do you think she did it? Do you think she
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  Speaker 2: did it?
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  Speaker 3: And we had access to so much more information than
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  Speaker 3: the general public did when they were reading our reporting,
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  Speaker 3: So all the way throughout I thought, if she gets off,
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  Speaker 3: this will be a travesty.
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  Speaker 1: She really nearly did get off. I mean I think
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  Speaker 1: that if she had not entered the witness box, in
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  Speaker 1: which I think she made an absolutely catastrophic performance, she
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  Speaker 1: made up stories about having and cried crocodile tears, I
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  Speaker 1: think she would have been acquitted.
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  Speaker 3: What did you make of the six days that it
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  Speaker 3: took the jury to decide her guilt?
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  Speaker 1: Oh? I mean after day one I was thinking, okay,
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  Speaker 1: she must be being acquitted. Because, of course, in Victoria,
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  Speaker 1: for a charge like murder, there's no such thing as
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  Speaker 1: a majority verdict. It has to be unanimous. Often when
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  Speaker 1: juries are struggling. They'll come in and ask a question
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  Speaker 1: like what can we make of the evidence about dumping
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  Speaker 1: the dehydrator at the tip?
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  Speaker 2: For example?
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  Speaker 1: They didn't ask a single question. I was wondering, is
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  Speaker 1: there one hold out who they were all trying to persuade,
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  Speaker 1: you know, one way or the other. I had kind
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  Speaker 1: of convinced myself that she was going to be acquitted
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  Speaker 1: after all of that time.
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  Speaker 2: Did you Yeah, I was in the hung jury camp.
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  Speaker 3: I thought that there might be, you know, a few
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  Speaker 3: members of the jury that were just saying, I just
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  Speaker 3: can't the evidence is not beyond reasonable doubt. It's such
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  Speaker 3: a high bar to get over. I thought they might
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  Speaker 3: end up in that position. But now we wait her sentencing.
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  Speaker 3: So we wait her sentencing. We're going to have sentencing hearings,
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  Speaker 3: we will hear victim impact statements from people who have
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  Speaker 3: been hurt by her crimes, and we will bring you
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  Speaker 3: all of that reporting at the Australian dot com dot
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  Speaker 3: au can't wait.
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  Speaker 1: You can read all the Australians reporting on this gripping
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  Speaker 1: case right now at the Australian dot Com dot Au