Latest / The Front / Why Erin Patterson’s lies ‘point to innocence’

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Why Erin Patterson’s lies ‘point to innocence’ · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, June nineteen, twenty twenty five. Ecstasy on prescription.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: That's the promise from a major health insurer funding access
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to a psychotherapy program for post traumatic stress disorder that
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: includes the use of the psychedelic MDMA. That story is
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: live now at the Australian dot com dot a U.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Aaron Patterson told lies, but that doesn't make her a killer.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: That's the core of her defense barrister's argument in the
• 0:43
  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
• 0:59
  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
• 1:17
  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
• 1:24
  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
• 1:48
  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.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Those are the words of Colin Mandy sc read for
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you by a voice actor. Mandy said, despite her lies,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Patterson is a person of good character with a strong
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: relationship with her in laws.
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  Speaker 2: She was close with the Patterson family and had been
• 2:11
  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.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: The barrister pointed to the evidence of Simon Patterson and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: his brother Matthew, who both said their parents were active
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in their lives of Aaron Patterson's two kids, and he
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: said Aaron and Simon were on good terms despite several
• 2:36
  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.
• 2:45
  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
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: have seen some evidence of, they were resolved really smoothly.
• 3:01
  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.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: She didn't mean those things. She regrets the language that
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: she used now that the whole world scrutinizing them. She
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: is ashamed of what she had written. She may well
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: have regretted it two minutes after she'd sent it. And
• 3:23
  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.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: In the days after the launch, when police and the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Victorian Department of Health were investigating what had made the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Pattersons and the Wilkinsons so sick, Aaron Patterson told police
• 3:45
  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
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: the pastry and the mushrooms minus the meat into bin?
• 4:00
  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.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Mandy said it was more plausible that Aaron had used
• 4:27
  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.
• 4:55
  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
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and attempted murder. Prosecutor Nanette Rodgers did draw the jury's attention, however,
• 6:00
  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
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: of witnesses who got called in this case by the
• 6:35
  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,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: where she was asking for their support in managing the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: kids while she was out of action.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: She had a problem with binge eating. She was feeling embarrassed, guilty, depressed.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: The jury heard evidence that the clinic she'd booked into,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the Enrich Dermatology Clinic, didn't offer gastric bypass, although it
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: did at the time offer liposuction.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Her understanding at the time she booked it was that
• 7:26
  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
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: thought she had issues with her health that ended up
• 8:01
  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
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: she had with other people, including Simon. She didn't have
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: anyone else in the world. That's not a lie. That's
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: the truth. She still had a great relationship with Don
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: and Gaale, that's the truth. And Simon might have been
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: isolating her a bit from the wider Patterson family. Also
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: probably true, and at the very least true that she
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: felt that way about it. Now, with the benefit of hindsight,
• 8:36
  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
• 8:48
  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,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: and if you look at it, we say with objectivity,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: not with the benefit of hindsight, it might be more understandable.
• 9:08
  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
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au