Latest / The Front / Judge: Did Erin Patterson lie to police or the jury?

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Judge: Did Erin Patterson lie to police or the jury? · 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: It's Wednesday, June twenty five, twenty twenty five. The Government
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  Speaker 1: check out the latest from our correspondence on the ground
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  Speaker 1: and analysis from our experts around the world right now
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  Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot a yu. Did Aaron
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  Speaker 1: Patterson lie to police or lie to the jury about
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  Speaker 1: foraging and dehydrating mushrooms. That's one of the big questions
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  Speaker 1: posed by the mush trial judge to the jury as
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  Speaker 1: he prepares them to deliberate over a verdict on Patterson's
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  Speaker 1: triple murder charge. Today we dig in to the judge's
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  Speaker 1: detailed instructions, don't let your sympathy cloud your judgment. That
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  Speaker 1: was the core of Victorian Supreme court Judge Christopher Beale's
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  Speaker 1: summing up. The courts call it a charge to the jury.
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  Speaker 1: In the Aaron Patterson triple murder trial, Patterson's pleaded not
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  Speaker 1: guilty to murdering her husband's parents, Don Gale Patterson and
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  Speaker 1: his auntie Heather Wilkinson. She's also pleaded not guilty to
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  Speaker 1: attempting to murder his uncle Ian Wilkinson with Beef Wellington
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  Speaker 1: that included deathcap mushrooms. Patterson says, it was all a
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  Speaker 1: terrible accident.
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  Speaker 2: It's for you and you alone to decide whether she
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  Speaker 2: is guilty or not guilty of these offenses.
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  Speaker 1: That's a voice actor reading the words spoken in court
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  Speaker 1: on Tuesday by Justice Christopher Beale.
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  Speaker 2: The verdict you return has absolutely nothing to do with me.
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  Speaker 2: You alone are the judges of the facts in this case.
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  Speaker 1: But Justice Bill's role is to direct the jury on
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  Speaker 1: points of law and to help the jury navigate their
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  Speaker 1: way through eight weeks of evidence. Right now, there are
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  Speaker 1: fourteen jurors sitting in the trial. When the judge finishes
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  Speaker 1: his charge later this week, the jury will hold a
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  Speaker 1: ballot to shrink their numbers to twelve, and those twelve
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  Speaker 1: must come up with a unanimous verdict on every charge,
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  Speaker 1: guilty or not guilty.
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  Speaker 2: You must ignore all other considerations, such as any feelings
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  Speaker 2: of prejudice or sympathy you may have for anyone involved
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  Speaker 2: in the case. You should, not, for example, be influenced
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  Speaker 2: by the mere fact that Aaron Patterson cooked the fatal meal.
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  Speaker 2: The issue is not whether she is in some sense
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  Speaker 2: responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether
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  Speaker 2: the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she
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  Speaker 2: is criminally responsible for those consequences. Similarly, the fact that,
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  Speaker 2: on her own admission, Aaron Patterson told lies and disposed
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  Speaker 2: of evidence must not cause you to be prejudiced against her.
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  Speaker 2: This is a court of law, not a court of morals.
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  Speaker 2: Nor must you let sympathy for the extended Patterson or
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  Speaker 2: Wilkinson families cloud your judgment. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not
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  Speaker 2: asking you to be inhuman. None of us are robots.
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  Speaker 2: Any decent person would feel great sympathy for the Patterson
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  Speaker 2: and Wilkinson families given what has befallen them, but you
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  Speaker 2: must scrupulously guard against that sympathy interfering with the performance
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  Speaker 2: of your duty. Remember you are judges of the facts.
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  Speaker 2: That means that in relation to all of the issues
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  Speaker 2: in this case, you must act like judges, or at
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  Speaker 2: least good judge. You must dispassionately weigh the evidence logically
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  Speaker 2: and with an open mind, not according to your feelings.
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  Speaker 1: The judge also said jurors must ignore anything they'd heard
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  Speaker 1: or read about the case, whether in the media or
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  Speaker 1: on the street. Here's what he said about Aaron Patterson,
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  Speaker 1: be accused who spent days in the witness box.
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  Speaker 2: In this case, Aaron Patterson chose to give evidence. She
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  Speaker 2: did not have to do that. As an accused person,
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  Speaker 2: she has the right to remain silent in court. As
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  Speaker 2: I've told you, it is the prosecution who must prove
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  Speaker 2: Aaron Patterson's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. It is not for
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  Speaker 2: her to prove her innocence, and this is not changed
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  Speaker 2: because she chose to give evidence. In choosing to give evidence,
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  Speaker 2: she undertook to tell the truth. She also submitted herself
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  Speaker 2: to cross examination, which is the way lawyers test a
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  Speaker 2: witness's credibility and reliability. There are four broad conclusions you
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  Speaker 2: must reach about Miss Patterson's evidence. First, if you think
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  Speaker 2: it's true, then you must find her not guilty of
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  Speaker 2: all four charges. Second, if you are not sure whether
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  Speaker 2: her evidence is true but think it might be, then
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  Speaker 2: you will have a reasonable doubt about the prosecution's case,
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  Speaker 2: and again you must find her not guilty of all
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  Speaker 2: four charges. Third, it's not enough that you prefer the
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  Speaker 2: prosecution case to Miss Patterson's evidence. It's not sufficient for
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  Speaker 2: you to find the prosecution to be preferable to the
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  Speaker 2: defense case. It's not a question of simply balancing one
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  Speaker 2: case against the other or choosing which one you prefer. Finally,
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  Speaker 2: if you do not believe Miss Patterson, that does not
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  Speaker 2: mean that you must find her guilty. Instead, if you
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  Speaker 2: reject her evidence, put it aside and ask whether the
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  Speaker 2: prosecution has proved her guilt beyond reasonable doubt on the
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  Speaker 2: basis of the evidence that you do accept.
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  Speaker 1: The judge said it was a critical part of our
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  Speaker 1: justice system that Patterson is presumed innocent.
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  Speaker 2: You have evidence from a number of witnesses that she
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  Speaker 2: has no criminal history, who over many years has been
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  Speaker 2: a devoted mother, a loving daughter in law, and a
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  Speaker 2: generous and caring sister in law.
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  Speaker 1: The judge said, if the jury accepts Patterson is a
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  Speaker 1: person of good character, they might consider her more trustworthy
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  Speaker 1: than a person who was not of good character.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, this does not mean you must find her
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  Speaker 2: not guilty if you accept that she is a person
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  Speaker 2: with good character. The mere fact that a person is
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  Speaker 2: of good character cannot alter proven facts. It can only
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  Speaker 2: help you to determine whether or not those facts have
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  Speaker 2: been proved. In addition, you should keep in mind the
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  Speaker 2: fact that a person who has previously been of good
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  Speaker 2: character can commit a crime for the first time.
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  Speaker 1: On to the facts, the judge gave jurors a summary
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  Speaker 1: of what each witness had told them, but first you
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  Speaker 1: reminded them of some of the controversial moments of the trial,
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  Speaker 1: and it gave them the example of a moment Aaron
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  Speaker 1: Patterson described in the days after the fatal lunch when
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  Speaker 1: she was a patient at Monash Medical Center in Melbourne.
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  Speaker 2: You will recall that Aaron Patterson alleges that at one
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  Speaker 2: point in the course of the conversation, the children left
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  Speaker 2: the room momentarily. She alleges that Simon said to her,
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  Speaker 2: quote is that how you poison my parents using the dehydrator?
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  Speaker 2: And she told you that she answered, of course not.
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  Speaker 2: You'll recall Simon Patterson's evidence. When that was put to
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  Speaker 2: him in cross examination, he said, I did not say
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  Speaker 2: that to her.
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  Speaker 1: The judge reminded the jury that defense lawyer Colin Mandy
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  Speaker 1: sc said that moment was the ful crom the turning
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  Speaker 1: point after which Aaron Patterson says she became worried about
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  Speaker 1: Simon's conduct and changed her mobile phone so he couldn't
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  Speaker 1: contact her. The judge said that was an example of
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  Speaker 1: the kind of controversy he didn't include in his chronology
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  Speaker 1: of the case provided to the jury, because he said
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  Speaker 1: it was up to them to decide who was telling
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  Speaker 1: the truth. Coming up, how the jury is to sift
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  Speaker 1: through Aaron Patterson's time in the witness box, the judge
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  Speaker 1: took the jury to something called tendency evidence. That's about
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  Speaker 1: whether or not she was in the habit of foraging
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  Speaker 1: for mushrooms. Patterson told the police when they interviewed her
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  Speaker 1: just days after the lunch that she'd never foraged for
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  Speaker 1: mushrooms and had never dehydrated food, But at trial, she
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  Speaker 1: told the jury this was something she'd been doing since
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  Speaker 1: COVID lockdown, when she and the kids would go on
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  Speaker 1: walks to the local botanic garden and rail trail. She
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  Speaker 1: said she'd pick non toxic mushrooms and dehydrate them because
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  Speaker 1: the mushroom season was short, as she wanted to be
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  Speaker 1: able to eat them all year round. Here's what the
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  Speaker 1: judge said summing up the defense case about Pattison and
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  Speaker 1: her evidence.
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  Speaker 2: The defense makes the following arguments. She loved mushrooms, not
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  Speaker 2: only according to what she said in evidence, but according
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  Speaker 2: to her Facebook friends. The fact that the kids don't
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  Speaker 2: remember her foraging for mushrooms is consistent with them just
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  Speaker 2: being young kids. It wasn't something she did every day.
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  Speaker 2: She didn't hide the fact that she'd purchased a dehydrator,
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  Speaker 2: instead broadcasting that fact to her Facebook friends, which she
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't have done. If she was deliberately planning to dehydrate
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  Speaker 2: death Cap mushrooms to poison her in laws, she would
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  Speaker 2: have not only concealed the fact of the dehydrator, she
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  Speaker 2: would have got rid of it once she deliberately dehydrated
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  Speaker 2: the death Cap mushrooms. It's argued that she gave a
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  Speaker 2: consistent account in her testimony and came through cross examination unscathed.
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  Speaker 1: Then the judge summed up the Crown case.
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  Speaker 2: The prosecution made the following arguments. The only evidence that
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  Speaker 2: she foraged for edible mushrooms came out of her mouth.
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  Speaker 2: She's a self confessed liar. There were no messages to
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  Speaker 2: Simon or the Patterson's group regarding foraging for edible mushrooms,
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  Speaker 2: no messages to the Facebook friends regarding foraging for edible mushrooms,
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  Speaker 2: no books on foraging edible mushrooms found during the searches
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  Speaker 2: of her home. She denied being a forager of wild mushrooms.
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  Speaker 2: It was argued that claims to have been a forager
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  Speaker 2: for edible wild mushrooms is a recent invention because of
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  Speaker 2: a realization on her part. The story about the Asian
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  Speaker 2: grocery mushrooms didn't add up.
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  Speaker 1: And this is how the judge said the jury could
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  Speaker 1: use that evidence about whether or not Patterson had a
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  Speaker 1: habit of picking and eating wild mushrooms.
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  Speaker 2: Having gone through the evidence and the arguments, you must
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  Speaker 2: take this evidence into account when deciding whether the prosecution
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  Speaker 2: has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused deliberately put
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  Speaker 2: death cap mushrooms in the beef Wellington's If you find
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  Speaker 2: that she had a tendency to pick and eat wild mushrooms,
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  Speaker 2: including putting them in meals she served to others, or
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  Speaker 2: if you think there is a reasonable possibility that she
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  Speaker 2: had that tendency, you may consider that it increases the
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  Speaker 2: possibilities that the death cap mushrooms ended up in the
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  Speaker 2: beef Wellington's accidentally rather than deliberately.
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  Speaker 1: So if Pattison is telling the truth about foraging now,
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  Speaker 1: the judge says, the jury might believe her claim it
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  Speaker 1: was all a terrible accident, Just as Christopher Beale will
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  Speaker 1: continue his summing up on Wednesday. The Australians covering every
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: moment of this trial, and our subscribers will be the
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  Speaker 1: first to know when there's a verdict. To join us,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: go to be Australian dot com dot au