The argument the jury was told to ignore

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Facts versus speculation.

Justice Beale lays down the law.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It is Thursday, June 26th.

We've just finished the 37th day of this trial.

Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.

The small town mystery that's gripped the nation and made headlines around the world.

On the menu was Beef Wellington, a pastry filled with beef and a pate made of mushrooms.

At the heart of this case will be the jury's interpretation of Erin Patterson's intentions.

Erin Patterson has strongly maintained her innocence.

It's a tragedy what happened.

I love them.

We are now into the third day of the judge's directions.

Again, a critical point of this trial, really important that the jury understands the kind of law around the decision they're about to make.

Rach, there's a lot to talk about, including some really specific directions from Justice Beale today.

But before we get to that, can you give us a wrap of what we've heard in court?

We heard more of the alleged incriminating conduct and what the jurors should do with that.

So some of the questions we've covered today, did Erin Patterson get dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer?

Did her children eat the leftover beef Wellington?

Why was she reluctant to be assessed in hospital and have her children assessed?

We moved on to the dumping of the dehydrator and back to that game of phones, which we've heard all about, Stocky.

Now, at the end of each section of this alleged incriminating conduct, Justice Beale has synthesised basically the crux of the arguments from both the prosecution and defence to help consolidate this river of evidence for the jurors.

And we also today got an update of the timeline of this four to six week trial that's now nearing the end of week nine.

It is quite the saga, the trial of Aaron Patterson.

And at this point, we are in the final stages.

You'll be pleased to hear.

The judge's directions, the judge's charge.

This is where he is basically wrapping up all the evidence that you've heard, kind of taking the jury through kind of the main points, right?

As you mentioned, the kind of main arguments from each side, a kind of a general crux of that.

And so when we're going through this section, which is basically, you know, it's titled Alleged Incriminating Conduct, these are things that Aaron Patterson has done after the lunch.

The prosecution is saying these are things that show that she has committed this crime, that she has murdered these people.

It's been a deliberate act.

The defense is saying through all this, actually, there's reasonable explanations from all of this.

You shouldn't be framing it in this way.

And Justice Beale is kind of wrapping up the key arguments for all of that.

And so, you know, with the Asian grocers, which was the first point that we hit today, this is basically the point that Aaron Patterson purchased mushrooms from an Asian grocer that she included in the lunch.

And the prosecution is saying that this is a lie.

This is something that she has made up to cover for the fact that she had put death cat mushrooms in this meal.

And one of the things that they say kind of highlights that as a lie is that she doesn't remember what Asian grocer that she went to, that she sent authorities on a wild goose chase, lots of different ones, changed the story a bunch of times.

And that is what the prosecution says, the evidence for this being a lie.

The defense says that, well, actually, she was asked the same question or variations of this question by dozens of people following the lunch.

She tried to give her best recollection of that.

And, you know, just a lot was going on at the time.

And so she just couldn't remember.

So that's the way that it's being framed by both sides.

Justice Beale kind of highlights that.

and then leaves the jury with sort of like, you know, the things they need to think about and remember throughout that process.

We went through that with Asian grocers.

And then we got on to the leftovers from the lunch, which Erin Patterson says she fed to her children the day after the lunch.

And this is basically the same approach with the Asian grocery right, Rach?

Yeah.

So it followed the same suit, Stocky.

So Justice Beale reminded the jury of the main prosecution arguments with regards to those leftovers.

One being the only source that that happened, as in that she fed the leftovers to the children, was Erin Patterson herself.

Another was that, you know, why would she feed her children leftovers when she thought, according to the prosecution, she told Dr.

Muldoon this on the Sunday, she thought that lunch had given Don and Gail food poisoning.

So why would you feed that same meal to the children?

Thirdly, if they'd eaten the meat, they would have experienced symptoms themselves.

And the prosecution's main argument that Justice Beale reminded the jury was that, you know, Erin Patterson's story would have been more readily believed if she'd given the same food to her children.

You know, that this was another lie to help cover her tracks.

The defence, Justice Beale summed up the crux of the defence argument.

One point being that

there's no expert that gave evidence that

the toxin, death cap toxin, had actually penetrated the meat, therefore would have made the children sick in the first place.

There was no expert that gave evidence that scraping off the paste wouldn't be enough, you know, to protect them, to not make them sick.

Yeah.

And it's interesting, you know, what you're saying there, because Justice Beale, once he'd done the kind of wrap, which means basically involves kind of like reading through the transcript of all the evidence, highlighting the main arguments,

then kind of gives the jury some direction on what they should and shouldn't think.

And he was really actually quite specific to the jury about, you know, what argument they should kind of like basically rule out here.

Yeah, totally.

So I'll use those two examples that I just said.

So no expert gave evidence that.

the toxins penetrated the meat.

Justice Beale reminded the jury that the evidence of Dimitri Dirostomoulis from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine wasn't wasn't saying that the Amanita poison had penetrated the meat.

And we heard about a vial again, the testing that was done on the leftovers, and we were reminded of other material adhering to that piece of meat.

So Justice Beals said to the jury, Dr.

Rogers, the prosecutor, has overstated what that evidence was.

Right.

Because Dimitri Gerostomoulis was not necessarily saying that the Amanita had penetrated the meat.

So he's kind of saying that the prosecution's argument that, you know, this meal, had it been fed to the children, would have made them sick, doesn't stack up.

They haven't heard evidence that backs that up.

Correct.

Justice Beale said, look, that has been overstated.

Another point

in this realm with would the children have experienced symptoms, Justice Beal said to the jury, now no expert was asked if the paste and the pastry had been scraped off the meat.

Would they have experienced some symptoms?

You know, no expert gave evidence as to whether that would be the case.

So Justice Beale said, I direct you to disregard that.

Is this the most specific he's been around an argument or an idea so far in his charge?

Yeah, and I think this is where Justice Beale really comes into play.

Like, this is his job.

He has to steer them on points of law.

He has to steer them on the evidence.

He has to be very clear what was evidence, you know, what was inferences.

And these two examples I've just given you is a very good example of that.

Like a coach saying to the team,

remember this point.

This is where your focus should be or not be as the case might be.

It'll be interesting as well as we get into the kind of the next couple of days this charge continues to see what else he's highlighting throughout this case.

Like we've heard a lot, you know, the way that questions are being asked, the way that arguments are being presented, you know, it's his job to kind of cut that down.

And, you know, in this instance as well, yeah, really specific around it, like ignore that argument.

You know, he was quite...

He was quite blunt.

He was like, you know, if you accept it, it would be speculation.

And to be fair, also, he might do that with the defence as well.

We were only hearing two that regarded to prosecution comments today, but we might in the next few days hear that as well.

Just be careful not to overstate this defence line or this defense inference or argument.

We don't know yet.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like

he's down the middle.

Justice Beale does not have a side.

He's making sure that both the defence and the prosecution are playing by the rules and that the jury is not going to be kind of swayed by something that might have been included in a question that was asked or might have been presented as like an inference or in this case, what, you know, what he says would be speculation.

You know, we went through a few other things today as well, Rach.

You know, we covered off Erin Patterson's reluctance to get medical care for herself and for her children, the dumping of the dehydrator, her phones.

Again, each one of these, we see a recap of the evidence that was given.

Justice Beale often reading through a transcript of various experts, things like that.

He does the, this is the prosecution argument, this is the defense argument, these are things to keep in mind.

It is a lot of information that is being given to people.

How is the jury through this?

You're in the room.

You're sitting there with them.

I hope they're more engaged than I have been I didn't see you today Stocky so I can't vouch for you I have a confession I had to look out the window a couple of times that it is so dense and it has been so long but when I do look back at the jury they're still paying attention they're trying to listen to this consolidation of everything that they've heard so far I noticed a couple of them today looked like they were making notes

A lot were looking at their iPads, like looking through exhibits as Justice Speal was mentioning them as we go through each witness.

So they still still seem very engaged, which is great.

Good on them.

And, you know, I mean, there's been so much evidence presented, right?

You know, it seems like a lot to go through a charge for at this point.

We're in the third day.

But, you know, there has been,

you know, there was last week closing arguments, but prior to that, you know, like eight weeks of evidence presented in this trial.

So there's a huge amount of information to go through.

Speaking of the amount of time we have been running through all this, Rach, you know, the jury didn't bring their toothbrush today.

They're not being sent to wherever their accommodation is while they're they're sequestered to consider the verdict.

Are they bringing one tomorrow?

No.

No, I thought they would be.

We thought they would be sequestered this weekend, but Justice Speal told the jury this morning that he will continue his charge tomorrow morning.

He'll stop at 1pm as they normally do on Friday.

They'll go home for the weekend.

And then he said he'll finish his charge on Monday prior to lunch.

And then that's when we'll have the ballot stocky, when the 14 jurors will be whittled down to 12.

Now, I did look at their faces to try to get a read on how they felt about this, whether they were happy about the weekend.

There was lots of nodding, there were some smiles, but there were no sighs.

So I think they're all in it for the long haul.

Well that was certainly a difference from the room that I was in when that news was given to us but glad the jury's having a good time.

They're some very important people and they will be the ones who are making the decision on whether or not Aaron Patterson is guilty or not guilty of murder.

Sounding like they will be heading off to consider their verdict from next week, which is, you know, getting us close to the end of this whole process.

We will be back, obviously, tomorrow with a Friday wrap, so we'll wrap up the whole week for you there.

Before we get to that, though, Rach,

very keen to answer a few questions.

We've got some fantastic ones coming through to mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

If there's something that you are wondering about, if there's a question you have about something we talk about on the pod or something you are wondering about about the court process, please get in touch.

Mushroomcase Daily at abc.net.au.

Rach, I want to start with a question question from Anton North Epping in Sydney.

He says hi Stephen and Rachel thanks for the pod.

I've loved better understanding our legal system through it.

Glad you're enjoying it Anton.

For the judge's charge and also for the sets of the closing arguments is it just one long monologue?

Has the judge been talking through the various points without interruption or is there any interaction or variation?

Seems a long time of just one person talking.

It is a long time and it is just one voice and lucky he has a lovely voice just to spiel so but it is all on him.

I wonder if you know how you know I get sick of the sound of my own voice when I hear it too much I wonder if he's getting sick of his own voice but he's doing a great job and yeah it's just all on him that's absolutely right Rach great question Anton and also you know just thinking back to you know while it is a lot of time of one person talking the thing I realized today as Justice Beale was going through all of this is that you know while he's talking to the jury at the moment and they're having to absorb all this information, they will have transcripts of all of this to review when they're doing their deliberations, which, you know, as I i mentioned they're going to head out and do from from next week and so when they're thinking about these main points they can flick back through to the judge's charge the judge's directions in this section here and go oh that's right there was this bit here and then from there they can dive deeper into the evidence um another question here rach from tim listening in from crossville in tennessee uh tim says great job so far don't worry tim still time to go downhill uh it seems to me that the judge's charge can sway a whole case he could potentially leave out a fact or his personal bias could shine through.

Do you agree?

Totally, Tim.

But I mean, that's where his crucial role comes into play.

He has had to listen through the entirety of this trial, work out how to best synthesise the evidence.

Yes, bias could definitely shine through in a position like this, but this is what they're trained for and why they're picked.

Justice Christopher Beale is the second most senior criminal judge in Victoria.

And that is essentially their job, not to be biased and be independent adjudicators, to weigh up all the evidence, to instruct jurors on the principles of law.

But you're right.

I mean, there's room for that, that that could happen, but they're trained not to let that happen.

He made a good point in the start of his charge that just because I mention a certain piece of information.

Don't regard that as more important than other ones.

Or if I leave one out, it's just this is what I've chosen to tell you, but you're the keepers of the facts.

You determine them.

You know, that's your job, basically.

So he's being very clear with the jury.

Thank you, Rach.

Tim, great question.

And to round us out, we have the triumphant return of More of a Statement, which is when someone emails us something that isn't quite a question, but it's just a very interesting observation on the trial.

This one is from Sarah Jane in Brisbane.

Sarah Jane says, Hi, Stocking, Rachel.

Absolutely loving the podcast and wish there was more out there like it.

I've listened to a lot of podcasts like this, but none have given me the kind of behind-the-scenes insights that you have.

I just wanted to say how much I've appreciated appreciated the latest content covering the judge's charges.

I've often thought that I wouldn't make a very good juror because I'd find it hard to weigh out the evidence.

But now, hearing the charges, I understand that the directions the jurors get really do help you do this, especially like the discussion on not being a court of morals, but a court of justice.

Yeah, thanks, Sarah-Jane.

And even though this part is delaying the deliberations, we've Stocky and I have seen just how important it is, you know, to crystallise their thinking as they go off to make that important decision.

Yeah, highlight the things they need to think about and some of the things, as we've heard today, that they shouldn't consider.

The arguments they shouldn't highlight.

Rach, back tomorrow to work our way to the end of Justice Beale's charge.

That's right.

We have one more point to get through in the alleged incriminated contact, and that is that Erin Patterson lied about being unwell and faked death cat mushroom poisoning.

We're back in your feed tomorrow.

Mushroom Case Daily is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Rachel Brown, and producer Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and a huge thanks to our True Crime colleagues who keep helping us out.

Our commissioning executive producer Tim Roxborough and supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

This episode was produced on the lands of the Gunai-Kurnai people.

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