Erin Patterson takes the stand

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Today we've got an answer to will or won't Erin Patterson take the stand in her triple murder trial.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It's Monday the 2nd of June.

We've just started week six 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 loved them.

Rach, we've had a

huge day in court.

Accused trouble murderer Erin Patterson has taken the witness box.

Huge day.

What a day for my co-hosting debut.

The timing's pretty incredible.

Before we get to Erin's evidence, though, can you take us through the whole day?

Just talk us through what we saw in court.

Sure.

Well, the big moment, obviously, Erin Patterson took the stand today.

She gave a potted history of life in general.

in 2023, good and bad.

And of course, 2023 was the year of that fatal Beef Wellington lunch.

We learned how she she met her estranged husband Simon, travels early in the romance, their marriage, having their first child, travels, and then when things started to fray.

We also heard from the informant Stephen Eppenstahl again.

He went through, we're back on the plates, he went through the plates again, things that weren't seized in the first execution of the arrest warrant, and then we were taken on a journey of three sim numbers from different phones.

And then it was re-examination of Stephen Eppenstahl from the prosecution and a list of agreed facts in this trial.

Thank you Rach.

Aaron Patterson on the stand is something that we have wondered if we would see the the whole way through this trial.

This is something we learnt was going to happen quite late in the day.

So we had come back in I think from lunch.

We were working through a re-examination of Stephen Eppenstahl, the informant.

And then as that finished, as they went through the agreed facts,

Colin Mandy, SC, the defence barrister, was asked by Justice Beale

what they would be doing.

And he basically said,

the defence calls Aaron Patterson.

What was the reaction in the room?

Big surprise, both from journalists and I even noticed one of the jury members have a sharp intake of breath and he said, oh.

Wow.

And then they all got shuffled out because we needed a short break.

But yeah, big surprise.

There's been a lot of people in the public gallery today, so they all tried to shuffle back into court.

And I was literally on the edge of my seat to have enough room with my elbows to be able to type.

So there was a lot of interest in this afternoon session.

The sense of drama was somewhat dampened as Colin Mandier sort of says, the defence calls Aaron Patterson.

And then Justice Beale's like, okay, cool, quick afternoon break.

Out you go.

Out you go.

But yeah, when the afternoon break concluded, the jury comes back into the room.

Aaron Patterson is sitting in the witness box and basically

we kind of taken to her life in mid-2023 and I guess the months or her life just before this fateful lunch.

So they started basically looking at 2023, the good, the bad and the ugly.

So they started with the good.

She said that her kids were doing quite well at a new school that they transferred to.

We heard about the care arrangements of the kids.

They were living full time with her, but they were able to see Simon whenever they wanted.

We learned that the daughter was seeing Simon on Saturday afternoons and nighttime sometimes, but the son was only seeing him less often at church groups and church and things like that.

We learnt about her wanting to study.

She wanted to study a Bachelor of Nursing at Federation University, she said, but she ended up deferring that because her daughter needed more attention that year.

Yep.

The house in Lee and Gather, she described it as what she saw as the final house where her children would grow up.

She said, you know, if they moved away for union work, it would be a place that they could come back to, that they could bring their children back to, that I would grow old there.

She said, that's what I'd hoped for.

And it was the first time she laughed in this trial because she said she'd designed it in Microsoft paint.

And an engineer said, that'll never work engineering-wise.

They did come, you know, this is a moment I thought was

quite revealing.

And she's designed this in Microsoft paint, taken it to an engineer.

They've gone, nah, never going to work.

It wasn't like they've abandoned it.

Like the engineers sounded like they kind of worked with her and made it into what it kind of was.

Yeah, and I think she saw it as her dream house and a place that would, you know, had specific spaces for children that would suit them.

And yeah, she saw it as a place that they could come back to.

So she saw it as their forever home.

And we've already seen and heard throughout the trial so far pictures of some of the rooms, like a room that's got a bunch of Lego in it, different spaces, all of that.

Kind of seemed to be designed kind of around the children.

It's kind of a kid's paradise, actually, if you saw that Lego room.

Yeah,

that was nice.

She was also asked about the kind of financial situation that she had and this is something again you know you just build a house you know and Colin Mandy kind of took it to that like what was your financial situation at this point?

She said yeah it was quite good and that's why she could afford to be able to think about going back to uni and not having to work.

Yeah

they went through the good.

Not all necessarily in a great spot.

I mean we've heard through a lot of evidence

Erin's relationship with her estranged husband Simon, but there are also other things that we learned about her life that we kind of hadn't heard up until this point.

Especially from her and this was one of the most important things.

I think we've heard snippets of it from other people, you know,

be it in the key circle or the outer periphery of her life, like the Facebook friends.

But yeah, Erin Patterson told the jury, you know, she'd felt for some months that her relationship with the wider Patterson family, and particularly Don and Gail, so Simon's parents, that there was more distance or there was more space put between us.

and she said she saw them less and she said I know we lived in different towns but she really noticed that distance and she had concerns that Simon, her estranged husband by that stage, was not wanting her to be involved too much in the family and she said perhaps I wasn't being as invited as much to things.

Remember Stocky that we heard a story about that, that she wasn't invited to Gail's birthday party, she thought, and was really hurt by that.

Yeah, yeah.

So we learnt about that.

We learnt about what she termed as dysfunctional, her her relationship with Simon.

She said from the start of the year, that's 2023 to July, she said we got through the logistical stuff, okay, the church and streaming of church services and looking after the children.

But she said we just didn't relate on other things like friend things, banter.

She said that changed at the start of the year.

Yeah.

And as well as talking through the kind of family dynamics.

You know, she was asked as well

kind of how she was feeling about herself physically.

And her reply was pretty revealing it was like a pretty blatant just like not good yeah it was pretty raw that's exactly what she said not good I was fighting a never-ending battle of low self-esteem that I'd had you know pretty much all through my adult life and further into middle age

I just didn't feel good about myself.

I put on more weight.

I was able to handle exercise less.

And so she was considering weight loss surgery, like having gastric bypass surgery.

Yeah.

And that was where we kind of finished the snapshot of Aaron Patterson's life in July 2023 and Defence Barrister Colin Mandy at that point kind of like flagged to the jury look we'll come back to July 2023 later and then he took us

you know 20 years back.

You know this is going back to the early 2000s

back to the beginning of Aaron Patterson's relationship with Simon

and kind of how they met working at the was it the Monash City Council?

Yeah so she was working at the RSPCA and he was working in traffic control, from what I understand.

And they were friends before anything romantic happened.

So I think they were friends in late 2004, friends for about eight months.

And then July 2005 is when they started to become romantic.

Yeah, it's not like classic

how you meet someone at work, right?

It was, you know,

they were mutual friends, they were going out for lunch, going out for dinner, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, and hanging out with other friends, going camping.

Camping sounds like it was a big part of their lives, even before there was this romantic attraction.

Yeah, and you know, we've also heard the church spoken about a few times in the course of this trial.

We know that the Pattersons are quite a religious family.

Obviously, Ian Wilkinson, a pastor of the Baptist church.

And something I was wondering about, like we've heard in some of Erin's messages, the tension between her and Simon and the kind of the basically faith causing that in some situations.

And I was really interested to see if she was going to give a religious oath or a a non-religious affirmation when she took the stand.

Every witness gives an affirmation or an oath.

She gave an affirmation.

And it wasn't very long before the church actually came up and we learned about kind of, you know, where Aaron Patterson was at kind of

theistically, theologically.

Theologically.

Theologically, when she met Simon.

Yeah, the church played a huge role in their life.

You know, not just the bits we've heard about her helping Simon every Sunday with helping to stream services, but even how they met, it was really interesting because she described herself as a fundamentalist atheist.

Not a term I'm familiar with, actually, but it was interesting, yeah, hearing her described that way.

And then also kind of what she went into that relationship with, right?

Because she's there, you know, she knows Simon Patterson's religious, like that's something that he's kind of wearing on his sleeve.

And she's kind of going into that relationship being like, oh, that's all right.

I'll just like, I'll make him an atheist too.

She said she was a hard atheist.

And so she tried to convert him.

And I remember I did look at Ian Wilkinson at this time because I was wondering what he was making of all this, but he was quite

hard to read today.

He was crossing his arms across his chest and just looking pretty intently at what Erin was saying.

But yeah, Erin said that she tried to convert Simon because she said before

those arguments that she would have with Simon, she described religion as a pretty intellectual exercise, you know, like, does it make sense?

Is it rational?

And then Simon, she said, ended up converting her

in a religious experience that she said quite overwhelmed her.

And this is, you know, kind of the main players and the main people in this trial kind of coming together at one moment here because, you know, the Pattersons are living in Corranborough.

They're attending the Corranborough Baptist Church, of which Ian Wilkinson, who was a guest of the lunch, is a pastor.

And it's one of Ian's sermons that kind of brings her around to this from the sounds of it.

Yeah, it was.

And she said she remembered looking up at a banner that was behind Ian on the wall behind where he was preaching.

And she said it read faith, hope, and love.

And Ian was giving a sermon talking about that.

And there's a passage that she says is in the Bible talking about the greatest of these three things is love.

And then she said, we had communion, which she was welcomed to participate in.

And this whole experience, that was it, won her over.

She was in.

The way that she talked about that room, or the way that Colin Mendy questioned her to kind of paint a picture of this room, go into this sermon, this Baptist church in Corranborough, with a man who is in the room at the moment as she's giving this evidence, describing that banner at the back of the room, that the sermon was all about that.

It was just, yeah, it was really...

really kind of took us to that moment.

And we also heard from her as they were kind of continuing on this journey of kind of, you know, Simon and Erin's relationship, we got to the, you know, their engagement and their marriage.

Yes, Erin says that they got married in 2007 in the Corrumborough Anglican Church.

And everyone kind of thought, what, why not?

Ian's church, but she basically said, I wanted Ian and Heather to have a day off.

You know, I wanted Ian not to have to work so he could enjoy the day.

She was asked, this really stuck with me, Stocky, she was was asked, where were your parents that day?

And she said very

bluntly,

they were in Russia on a train.

And she was questioned again by Colin Mandy about that.

I think he, I can't remember if he, if he sort of led the question or if she just responded, but I think he was just sort of asked, what were they doing there?

Just traveling.

Yeah, on a traveling.

And when I heard that, I just thought, oof, you know, you can tell that cut deep with her, but that's all we learned about that but they were not there Don and Gail were and we've heard at times during this trial that she saw them as her parents you know her parents eventually passed away

but

they

I think these were two people that she saw as always being there for her once she married Simon yeah she's walked down the aisle by I think one of Simon's brothers, is that right?

Cousin David.

Cousin, right.

And then, you know, further to the relationship with Don and Gale, we heard about how they popped up a marquee somewhere in Corramborough.

I can't remember if this was an empty lottery in a park or something like that.

Chucked on a buffet for everyone.

Everyone loves a buffet.

Yeah, and

we hear how the relationship kind of moved from that.

So Simon living in Melbourne in a unit when they got married.

Erin moved in briefly for that, but they didn't hang around, basically got rid of his car, bought it for a drive.

hit the road straight out of Dodge.

Yeah, what a dream, right?

So they went to Birdsville, the Inner Data Track, she said, through the guts of it really so through the guts of australia and then eventually they made their way back to perth by september 2007 and then settled there yeah they go kind of on a trip to africa around this period as well they're doing a lot of traveling um and simon seems pretty keen all the way erin tells it at least simon seems really keen to uh continue to travel continue uh going on these kind of like adventures i guess for lack of a better word um erin's priorities a little bit different um again kind of boils it down quite succinctly.

Basically, I just wanted to start having babies.

Yeah, she was in her early 30s and she said, while Simon was keen to keep driving, I was keen to start having babies.

And that was sort of the plan, and that kind of went well until it didn't.

Yeah, and just a content warning for this next bit, we'll be describing birth trauma.

So we're into January 2009 now, and she gives birth to a son.

And she said his birth was very traumatic.

And she was pressed on this by Colin Mandy and she said look it went on for a very long time and they tried to get him out with forceps and this was when her voice starts wavering like it was the first time

you know we haven't heard from her so I was wondering how she would sound in the witness box but she had been quite composed up until this point but this is where her voice starts wavering.

She said they tried to get him out with forceps.

He was in distress.

His heartbeat went down and they had to do an emergency C-section and they got him out.

And for Erin Patterson, she said that wasn't the end of her distress.

Her son had been feeding from a tube, but when he was able to come off that, the hospital workers said he was able to go home, but they wanted Erin to stay.

They said she hadn't healed well enough.

And she told the jury that she was really upset about that and she just wanted to go home with her baby.

And she's told the jury that Simon at the time, her husband at the time, said, Well, you can just do it.

Let's just leave.

So they left.

And this is a discharge against medical advice.

Then she signs the form.

So basically they're going like, look, we don't think you should go.

And she's like, yep, no, look, I want to go.

So she's telling the jury this is what she's done in 2009 when her son's been born.

And again, like, this is, we've heard of, you know, her being discharged against advice.

Happened when, you know, following the lunch, when she was in the Lee and Catholic hospital, said they wanted to keep her in.

And she was like, no, no, I need to go home.

I need to sort some things.

She signs a discharge against advice form.

And I think that's why the defence wanted the jury to hear that story because they'd heard that she'd discharged herself before against medical advice, but this is the story.

So they finally learn why, you know, and because she was so distressed.

But yes, the time after the lunch was on the Monday, she came in with gastro.

The doctor asked her to stay because they found out she was the fifth member of that lunch.

And she discharged herself because she said she can't just

check in

for overnight that she had things she needed to do, like feed the animals, look after the kids, things like that.

Yeah, and we've heard again a lot from Erin Patterson's defense team about how strong the relationship she had with Simon Patterson's parents was.

So this is Don and Gail Patterson.

They were two guests at the lunch.

And it sounds like...

This moment, or at least the time following the birth of her son in 2009, she's living in Perth.

It's kind of like a key moment for building the relationship, at least with Gail Gail Patterson.

Yeah, she found her mother-in-law invaluable for that time.

You know, it's her first baby, as probably

I haven't had kids, but as probably all first mums are like, what the hell am I doing?

You know, I've heard it from girlfriends.

So she was talking about her relationship with Gail Patterson, Simon's mum.

And she said, I was just so relieved she was there because I felt out of my depth.

I had no idea what to do with the baby.

I didn't have confidence.

And the way she described Gail was just that she was gentle and patient,

taught Erin to help her son to settle after a feed, how to interpret his cries and things like that.

But

the thing that the most stuck with me was that Erin said Gail taught me just to relax and enjoy it.

You know, that you don't have to stick to a schedule.

You don't have to stick to this timetable.

Just relax and enjoy your baby.

Yeah.

And, you know, they've travelled over from...

Corrumborough to Perth to stay in a house that, you know, the little house, the little unit they're living in is too small for, you you know even you know Erin Simon and and her son at this point so they've they've rented a house somewhere else so that they can have Galen on there for that guidance

and you know the the thing that was I guess kind of heartwarming about some of the evidence we heard today is that you know after that initial period where Aaron's son isn't well

he actually seems to recover pretty well and Simon you know wanted to kind of continue that adventuring at least Aaron said he wanted to continue that adventuring before settling down and having a kid kid.

But he, it seems like, kind of convinces her to

hit the road again.

They've still got the Nissan Patrol, the four-wheel drive.

They take that.

for a big old whack up the top of Western Australia, go along the Gibb River Road with some friends there.

They then drive down the Tanamai, so go all the way down through the middle of the country, down to Alice Springs,

back up through Tennant Creek, over to Queensland, going up the coast of Queensland, across the edge, I think along the beach.

And, you know, initially, Erin's describing this as kind of like, you know, for a holiday that sounds like a nightmare with a child, actually sounds like it went pretty well.

Well, she said it was a really good holiday.

She was feeling good.

The son was three months old when they started.

And she said the joke was that we didn't even know what eye color.

he had because he was just sleeping all the time, you know.

So she said it was easy to manage and it was actually good because they'd time their long drives during times that the son would be having a three-hour nap and things like that but then yeah she did say she got to a point where she just and we've all been there we just want our own bed she wanted to sleep in her own bed she said her son was getting older it was harder because he was you know sitting up and crawling trying to stand and it just became a bit unmanageable so she jumped on a plane and went back to Perth Simon drove with the son And when they came back, they lived in different places.

So this is the first period of separation, shall we say.

And she said, you know, we just couldn't communicate when we disagreed about something.

We couldn't communicate in a way that we felt heard and understood.

And both of us just ended up feeling hurt.

So, that I think that first separation lasted a few months.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was her in like a little cottage.

Simon sounded like he was still close by, in like a little on-site caravan or something like that,

still living on the west coast.

And

it was interesting because Cole and Mandy started talking, you know, obviously about how they handled it.

And that's when they started talking about how they would communicate, how they just struggle to kind of communicate, I guess, and not feel heard.

And then he asked about

the kids.

Like,

how did you manage this with your children?

Yeah.

And as sadly, we know, kids can often become collateral damaged in relationships when they fall apart or implode.

But she said they made a point of making sure that that didn't filter through to her son.

She said they were adult problems, not matters for a child.

And that was the end of all of the evidence for today.

It was the moment where I think Colin Mandy might have even said something on the lines of like, is that a convenient time?

And Justice Beale sent the jury out.

Aaron Patterson wasn't the only person we heard from today.

We continued at the start of the day with the cross-examination of Stephen Eppenstorm.

Spent most of the morning kind of going through phones, which we've heard a whole bunch of.

And

in something that I was not that excited to hear about, we had a new phone introduced, an oppo phone.

Why weren't you excited?

There's a lot of phones that I've been trying to keep track of.

And we now have an oppo phone, which Erin apparently was using up to our arrest in November 2023.

So we heard about three relevant SIM cards and we've heard about two so far.

So we all did think, oh, it's another one that we have to somehow fit into this picture.

So three relevant SIM cards and we

worked through one of them

through a number of years.

And this was one and they charted back.

And don't worry, listeners, I'm not going to take you through it, but went back to 2019.

I think this particular SIM card going through different phones.

As you've heard in the past, you know, this SIM card was in phone B and then it goes into phone A and then it eventually goes into phone C.

So we've had to keep our heads around all of that.

And we actually saw a flow chart about all that movement of the different SIMs and the different handsets.

Did you get a clear view from the overflow room?

Because I know you love your spreadsheets.

Yeah, this is basically a spreadsheet with, I wouldn't call it a spreadsheet, actually, not a pure spreadsheet, more of a chart, but a number of columns detailing a number of different phones.

And there were, you know, we've heard about phone A, B and C talked about through this trial.

There are a number of phones that don't line up with any of those descriptions.

And again, yeah, starting way back in like 2019, the first of the kind of SIM card movements through this.

And then, yeah, a number of SIM cards as well, seeing the different movements of SIM cards into different devices.

We also heard, too, that...

Erin's son had a SIM card that at one point goes in and out of phone B.

And I thought that was interesting because this goes to one of the listener questions the other day about who had access to these phones.

And so the defense is trying to introduce the fact, well,

her son had access to one of them at one point in time as well.

Yep.

It wasn't just the phones, though, as well.

We looked at other photos from a second search of Erin's house.

This is on the 2nd of November.

And we get a bunch of different devices as well that are photographed in this, and then lots of questions to Stephen Eppenstall about what they are, where they are taken, so on and so forth.

So, in that second search on the 2nd of November 2023, Stephen Eppenstahl told the court that three laptops were found, and he assumes that they weren't found the first time around on the 5th of August just after the launch.

Yep.

And we saw another photo of the plates.

Now again, spoke a lot about the plates, spoke a lot about the plates on Friday as one of the kind of key bits of evidence.

Colin Mandy took Stephen Eppenstall to photos of the plates taken, or sorry, stills from video taken of Aaron Patterson's house when it was searched in August 2023.

And we got a bit more of an idea of what plates were there and kind of some more questions about exactly which ones they were.

Yeah, so we heard from Ian Wilkinson, the sole surviving guest from that lunch, and he recalls four grey plates, remember?

And he told the jury that Erin Patterson ate off an orangey tanny plate.

But what we saw in the stills from a video of that search when a warrant was executed were

two black dinner plates.

There was a bigger black and red plate.

There were two white plates, and then there's a colourful plate that looks like it has kindergarten scribbles on it.

Yeah, right.

And then,

is there anything else I've missed from Stephen Emberstall?

Like, those were the things that kind of stuck with me.

Is there anything else from his evidence or you know, his re-examination that

you know has stuck in your mind?

Yeah, he was pressed again on a black item sitting on a windowsill.

Was it or wasn't it a phone?

Yeah.

You know, something that they missed in the first search.

And then we know that certain phones of Aaron's weren't found.

but were they there and not found?

I think is what Colin Mandy was trying to get to.

And so Stephen Eppenstall was asked, is that a phone?

And he was shown a photo of a black rectangular object on a windowsill.

And he said, that's a matter for the jury to decide.

A classic deferral to the jury.

Stephen Eppenstahl was briefly re-examined, kind of taken over a couple of other bits and pieces.

And in the final act from the prosecution in this trial, you know, unless they're doing any cross-examination a bit later, but kind of like final pure bit of prosecution, we had the agreed facts.

This is, to me, a new experience, the agreed facts.

I was expecting a document detailing hundreds of little bits and pieces.

I was like, how long is this going to go for?

There were five, six, I think.

Most of them kind of felt like things we knew, but the one that stuck with me was fingerprint analysis of the sunbeam dehydrator recovered from the waste transfer station.

Yes, so we heard that it's been agreed that a fingerprint expert, Sonia Jeremiah, looked at that dehydrator, did a fingerprint lift from that sunbeam dehydrator that was found in an e-waste bin on the 4th of August 2023, and she compared it to fingerprints of Erin Patterson.

And it was a match.

The prints on the dehydrator matched prints of Erin's left, index, middle, and ring fingers.

Gotcha.

And I mean, I said there was a list of five things.

What else was on the list of agreed facts?

Well, the other main one has to do with the mobile number connected to phone A.

And the defence and the prosecution have agreed that the day Erin Patterson's house was being searched, that's the 5th of August 2023,

the number, the mobile number connected with phone A loses connection to the network between 12.01pm and 1.45pm.

Now this could be due to three things.

The SIM card could have been removed or the battery could have been removed without the phone having been turned off or thirdly the handset could have been damaged in such a way that would disrupt power of the handset or disrupt the handset's connection to the network.

Now the next time this phone number shows up on the system, it's the next morning.

It's Sunday the 6th of August at 1.44 a.m.

and that number is now connected to an Ochia phone.

Thank you, Rach.

Good to kind of get through all that.

We are getting a huge number of questions, mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au, so you can get in touch with us.

We're getting, yeah, as I mentioned, a lot of questions.

I actually have to run through a few of them now.

First one I've got here is from Tess.

Tess asks: With Erin Patterson being called to the stand, does that mean that the prosecution will get a chance to question her?

Or is it only defence who can do that?

Tess, they will.

And so this is a reason why the defence would have thought long and hard before Erin Patterson took the stand.

It would have been something that was strategised about because it can be risky because you do open up your client to be cross-examined by the prosecution.

Yep.

Incredible from Tess to actually email us a question about what has happened today before we've recorded the podcast.

And so I've answered it in there.

Lovely you've locked and loaded a mushroom case daily at abc.net.au into your emails.

You got a draft there.

So at I assume like three or four o'clock in the afternoon, you just fired that one straight at us.

Another one here from Karina in Keesboro.

Karina says, hi team, earlier in the case, Simon Patterson alluded to some inflammatory texts that Erin had sent to the family, but I don't recall them being read out.

Has there been any further detail about these texts that caused the family distress?

Yeah, Karina, there was one in particular one that I've been wondering a lot about too, but it just hasn't come up.

It's a text that Simon claims would have made his mum incredibly upset.

And he talked about health problems she'd had in the past, so he didn't want her reading this because he said she really, really would have got very distressed by this text.

But what this text was, I don't believe believe we've ever seen it.

Yeah.

All right.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Karina.

And Rach, our final one, again, very closely related to what we've heard talked about today in court.

It's one from Brendan.

He says, hi, all.

Love your work.

You mentioned that Detective Stephen Eppenstahl chose to stand at the beginning of his evidence in the witness box.

People either choose to stand or to sit.

Brendan has remembered correctly that Stephen Eppenstahl elected to stand.

His question is, did he remain standing for the entire time he gave evidence?

He did.

Five days, if I have it correct.

He did, Brendan.

All that army training getting put to good use.

Yeah, he was in there for a while, so he's done well.

If you've got a question for us, please email mushroomcased daily at abc.net.au.

We do read every single one of them.

We would love to hear from you if you've got questions.

And so please get in touch and let us know.

Also, while you're

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You can find it on the relevant app store of whatever smart device you are finding yourself lumbered with.

And you will get episodes of Mushroom Case Daily on there slightly faster than you will on any other platform.

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You'll find something that will entertain and surprise you if you make the effort to track that one down.

So jump on that.

Rach, what are we getting ourselves into tomorrow?

Tomorrow, more of Erin Patterson.

So as you mentioned, it finished on the when the relationship between Erin and Simon started to fray and how they tried not to let it affect their children.

So Erin Patterson will be back in the stand tomorrow morning.

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

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

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson and a huge thanks to court reporter Christian Silver and also our true crime colleagues who continue to help us out.

Our commissioning editor, executive producer Tim Roxborough, supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

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

Hello, I'm Manishka Matandadauti, the presenter of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds.

Sean Diddy Combs is facing a fight for his freedom as his hugely anticipated trial starts for sex trafficking, racketeering with conspiracy, and transportation for prostitution.

He denies all the charges.

I'll be bringing you every twist and turn from the courtroom with the BBC's correspondents and our expert guests.

So make sure you listen and subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.