Please stand.
For the first time ever, the Supreme Court of Victoria allowed a television camera to broadcast sentencing the hearing for convicted triple murderer Aaron Patterson for.
The attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. I sentence you to twenty five years imprisonment for the murder of Heather Wilkinson. I sentence you to life imprisonment for the murder of Gail Paterson. I sentence you to life imprisonment for the murder of Don Passon. I sentence you to life imprisonment.
When Justice Christopher Bill sentenced her to life in prison, it was the conclusion of a story that has captivated Australia for more than two years.
Oh, it was a big moment. It was a really big conclusion to this has been building up. It's amazing to think it's stretched over two years now.
Investigative journalist Lucy Morris Marr has been following the case ever since the fatal mushroom lunch in Leam Gaffa in July twenty twenty three, where Aaron Patterson served to beef Wellington laced with poisonous deathcat mushrooms.
To her, I think the whole of Australia. They are watching that live. Of course, it's also a historical moment today because the Supreme Court of Victoria has never broadcast a sentencing live or anything live like that. But as much as the media have gone through this and covered it, it's nothing like the families, you know, the relief they must feel today having gone through all that themselves, and I know for them this has been absolutely exhausting.
I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven.
AM today Walkley Award winning journalist and author Lucy Morris Mark on the impact of Aaron Patterson's crimes and whether the victims and families will finally have some closure.
It's Tuesday, September nine. Lucy Erin Patterson has just been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum prison period of thirty three years. There were many aggravating factors that the judge spoke about when he handed down that decision. One was her lack of remorse. He mentioned that several times. So tell me what you were thinking as you heard him lay that out.
Of course, you know, with a judge, you know, naturally he doesn't ever say his opinion. Really, he did seem very taken by the victim impact statements a couple of weeks ago, where seven members of the hugely extended families stood up and read their victim impact statements, and he did say, you know, this is a tsunami of pain and grief, and that got the sense of how he
was feeling. But of course, then to hear him lay out in detail Erin's planning, her lies, and the way he did it with such clarity, it just really reiterated that the jury made the right decision.
The prosecution submits, and your council concedes that your offending falls into the worst category of offending for these offenses, and that you should receive the maximum penalties for your crimes. I agree for reasons that I will come to in due course.
And he was very scathing at times.
Naturally, not only did you cut short three lives and cause lasting damage to Ian Wilkinson's health, thereby devastating the extended Patterson and Wilkinson families, you inflicted untold suffering on your own children, whom you robbed of their beloved grandparents.
You know, he said this crime was premeditated and planned. He made the absolutely clear. He clearly outlined each aspect for example, looking at death caps on I Naturalist's website.
That is a website on which people can post and view sightings of death cap mushrooms, amongst other things. On the twenty eighth of May twenty two, you access the I Naturalist website and navigated to its worldwide map in relation to sightings of deathcap mushrooms.
She bought a dehy tractor. She took pictures of what experts later said look like death caps in that de hopereta and sent them on her friend group with the true crime friends that she'd made on Facebook.
You photographed forage mushrooms on the trays of your dehydrator. The images were found by investigators on a Samsung tablet later seized from your home.
She invited Simon Patterson to the infamous lunch, saying she had an important medical news, which of course we now know is lies.
Simon and you exchanged messages. Simon's read quote, Sorry, I feel too uncomfortable about coming to the lunch with you, Mum, Dad, Heather and Ian tomorrow, but I am happy to talk about your health and implications of that at another time. If you'd like to discuss on the phone, just let me know. You replied five minutes later, quote, that's really disappointing. I've spent many hours this week preparing lunch for tomorrow.
And the judge said he accepted Ian Wilkinson's evidence that she served guests on gray live plates and hers was on a small plate, which was a huge part of the trial. You know, it just went on and on and it really reminded those watching live exactly how elaborate this crime was and intentional. H Yeah.
And he also said that it was clear that she had wanted her guests to suffer. She would have known the effect of poisoning with death cat mushrooms, and he described her what she'd done as falling into the worst category of murder and attempted murder. So what did you make of his characterization of how serious her crimes are?
Absolutely correct. I mean during the trial, I was very moved and it was very difficult to listen to the suffering involved in terms of those poor people, the initial gastro symptoms, which became more and more extreme as the hours went by, and then their time in hospital was as medics desperately tried to save them. Their organs were basically filling with fluid and it was that actually a reminder that violent crimes don't always have to evolve a
knife or a gun. This was a very nasty, violent crime, and as he said, she intended to kill them all, and she showed no pity for her victims. Another quote he said was you followed through on your lethal plan, which was actually a quote as he noted from Heather and Ian's daughter Ruth de Bois, as.
The Wilkinson's daughter Ruth Dubois remarking her victim impact statement, you quote followed through on your lethal plan. Your lunch giars each suffered severe gestro intestinal illness on the Sunday and Monday prior to being sedated and mechanically ventilated. Their suffering was protracted.
Because maybe if she said yes, I forage, and they would have realized there was a chance that they could have consumed death caps or another seriously poisonous mushroom. They could have had an antidote or the medication that people can have to protect from liver damage. So she carried on the cry in those following days, and he said their suffering was substantial. It was enormous betrayal of the trust of your victims. All had been good to you.
Your victims were all your relatives by marriage. More than that, they had all been good to you and your children over many years, as you acknowledged in your testimony.
Very damning, very scathing, and wrote me so.
And one thing that Justine Spiel pointed out was that we still don't know why Aaron Patterson did what she DIDs. Motive was never established, he said, and he was talking directly to her.
Only you know why you did this.
So given that, do you think that we're just going to see endless speculation here about what her motive was.
Yes, unless she ever confesses, which it doesn't look likely, we will never know. I mean, of course, the speculation there was a fallout. He did mention the family fall out briefly when she was seeking support from Don and Gail Patterson regarding her strange husband, Simon's lack of paying
child support for a short time. And there's speculation that she held onto that grudge even though it was seemed to be resolved, and that she really held that in But of course we heard when the pre trial suppression order was lifted, we heard that, you know, Simon Patterson alleges that she tried to poison him on several occasions and made him extremely unwell. But you know, clearly she's in the right place. Is a very serious crime. This is a serial killing crime and one that we thankfully
don't see very often in Australia. But she has been given these life sentences. And yes, it's thirty three years in prison, non parole period, but actually, if you break it down, Ian Wilkinson's attempted murder was twenty five years, the killing of Heather Wilkinson life in prison, Gail Patterson life in prison, Don Patterson life in prison. I mean, if you added all that up, it would come to like one hundred years. But she can only do what
she can do. So it's being done concurrently, and it's a life sentence with a non parole period of thirty three years, but she'll be eighty three. Will she live to see that? We don't know. It's not exactly conducive healthy conditions where she's being held.
Coming up, why the sole survivor of Erin Patterson's poisoned lunch has offered forgiveness Lucy In setting Aaron Patterson's non parole period, Justice Bill spoke a lot about this being one of the biggest points that he had to make a decision on. So tell me about the considerations that would have gone into his decision.
I think with the non parole period when there was the pre sentencing hearing in the last few weeks we've had, there was a lot of argument between the Crown and the defense bearer ser Colin man dysc in terms of should there be a non parole period. The Crown we're pushing no, she should die in jail. And in the end the judge said the reason he gave her a
non parole period. So for example, you could call that a shred of light that one day, at eighty three years old, she could have some kind of freedom if she makes it that long, he said. He took into consideration Erin's life in the Gordon Wing of Dame Phyllis Frost Center. Now this wing's quite infamous. It is the most serious isolation wing where generally they're in their cells for maybe twenty two hours twenty three hours a day and they don't really mix with each other. They only
mix with staff. So even though she's in theory allowed out of herself, sometimes she doesn't get out. But they're saying due to the forthcoming documentaries, books, etc. Her notoriety will go on, and they're worried that she would be attacked effectively in prison. So he took that into consideration in terms of giving her that non parole period, because he accepts that that's not really standard to keep someone
in segregation. In fact, the UN suggests it should only be fifteen days at a time, and she's facing many years at a time in this situation.
Yeah, given that, given that it is in breach of you and guidelines, how long is a situation like that likely to go on for? Like you would hope, well, you would think that it might change.
Yeah, I suppose while we're in this frenzy. We've got the Stand documentary coming out, there's books coming out from multiple publishers. There's going to be so much attention on this, and so I think therefore her own safety, I think it will be for the foreseeable future, might be you know, a few years, five years, she might be able to go back and be in the more general area and
have despite what she's done. We're a humane country and we treat people appropriately, and I think that's important for us as a society, and so she will be treated as appropriate for her status at that point. The murders.
Here today is to give some well earned thanks firstly to Victoria Police, in particular the homicide squad and the team led by Detective Stephen epping Stall and.
Ian Wilkinson, who was the only person to survive that lunch. He was there today and he spoke briefly outside of court. He thanked police, he thanked prosecutors. So tell me a bit about the impact of all of this on him, as well as the other community members, family members, friends.
Ian Wilkinson look I remember seeing him at the pre trial hearing for the first time. Was the first time he appeared in court. That was last year in the Supreme Court in the William Street in Melbourne. I was absolutely blown away by his presentation. He was just so poised for what had happened, including loss of his wife. He appeared at the trial. He was very strong, he got the facts out, he didn't waiver, he wasn't overcome
by emotion. Again, extremely impressive carriage. It was only when he came to do his victim impact statement two weeks ago that he did break down as he talked about Heather's character and she sounded such a wonderful person, absolutely lovely mother and grandmother who helped her local community, helped family. And he talked of the loneliness, the isolation, the despair of being a new widower. He called himself suddenly single, like at that age, you know, his early seventies, and
he broke down, but he still carried on. He got through that statement. He had took deep breaths, he paused, and then of course his daughter, Ruth Dubois, another incredibly impressive lady, who said how much she missed her mother, and poignantly she said she was somebody I trusted with both the best parts and worst parts of myself, knowing there'd be no judgment. I was really connected to what she said, and I really realized the loss, and that
really was emotional. And then of course there was many other statements made, in fact, altogether lodged with the court. There was twin eight victim statements. The judge was clearly very moved by that, and he said this has affected generations, plus their friends, plus the community. He took that into consideration with the sentencing.
And so Aaron Patterson now has a month to ludge an appeal either against her sentence or her conviction or both.
So does that seem like a thing to happen. Well, it's up in the air at the moment. She now has exactly twenty eight days from today, as you mentioned, to appeal either against conviction or sentence. So it will be very interesting. Her barrister, Colin Mandy, didn't comment. He was surrounded by media as he left the court today. It was interesting there was one point in the judge's speech where I felt, yeah, he may seemed to suggest
she shouldn't appeal. He pointed out that Ian Wilkinson had offered her his forgiveness and the quote that Ian Wilkinson said it was for all those harms done to me, with full confession and forgiveness. And it was interesting the judge mentioned that it was perhaps he was saying, you know, don't appeal, don't put these people through that, and you make yourself a better person, which is what Ian Wilkinson did. But look at this point, she's got thirty three years
ahead of her before she's out. That's if she survives that long in those conditions, and so I think she probably will appeal. Like she's never confessed, she's put everyone through a lengthy trial, so we'll have to just see, but I wouldn't be surprised because she literally has nothing to lose.
Well, Lissie, thank you so much for be at time today, Oh my pleasure. Also in the news today, Liberal MP Alex Hawk has called on just into Number tip a Price to apologize for the real damage her comments have caused the Indian Australian community. Price claimed with that evidence that the federal government was bringing in migrants to win votes and named the Indian community as an example of that.
The fall that has caused Opposition leader Susan Lee to attempt damage control with the Indian Australian community holding roundtables and taking a public tour through Little India. And The Australian Conservation Foundation has appointed former Greens leader Adam Bant as the organization's next chief executive. Band, who unexpectedly lost the seat of Melbourne the May election, will replace longtime ACF CEO Kelly O'shannessy, who announced earlier this year that
she was resigning. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.