From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, June twelfth, twenty twenty five. China and the United States have hammered out a trade deal and both sides are claiming a win. But Chinese factories are closing and its exports to the US have tumbled. The Australians correspondent Will Glasgow is reporting today on the truth behind both sides spin on this fragile truce.
The Crown alleges Aaron Patterson.
Lied to more than a dozen people, including police, child protection workers, doctors and nurses, about feeding leftovers from a fatal mushroom lunch to her children. Patterson, who's fighting a triple murder charge, says that's not true, and she also says her kids and doctors are wrong about their recollections
of that fatal day. That's today's story. Crown Prosecutor Nanette Rogers sc is digging into every moment of the days after Aaron Patterson's mushroom lunch in July twenty twenty three, which left three elderly relatives dead and one seriously ill. Patterson is pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. On Wednesday in the Victorian Supreme Court, Rogers spent hours putting to Patterson what she allegedly told doctors, nurses, police and her children.
At the time.
We've used voice actors to bring you the words spoken in court by Nanette Rogers and Aaron Patterson again and again. Patterson says the other witnesses are wrong in their recollections of what she said to them at the time, like Chris Webster, the doctor on duty at leand Gatha Hospital.
Rus Webster's evidence was that when you first presented to lean Gatha Hospital, he asked you where you got the mushrooms, and his evidence was that you said Woolworths.
I agree that I said Woolworths, but I disagree what the question was. That wasn't the question I remember him asking. He's mistaken the content of his question.
Pattison says Webster actually asked where did you get the ingredients. Doctor Veronica Foot gave evidence that two and a half hours later, Patterson told her she'd bought some of the mushrooms from Safeway in Land Gaffer and some dried mushrooms from a Chinese grocer in Melbourne months earlier, in April.
I suggest you had some time to think about your story in that intervening period. Correct or incorrect?
Incorrect?
You added a detail to this account concerning the mushrooms from the Chinese grocer, I suggest incorrect.
Next, Patterson told doctor Laura Muldoon she had used dried dehydrated mushrooms. Possibly Sheitaki or Porcini and bought them at a Chinese grocery store in Oakley or Glen Waverley.
Possibly I did tell her those things.
I suggest it was a lie that you told her that you had used dried dehydrated mushrooms bought at a Chinese grocery store in Oakley or Glen Waverley.
Incorrect.
Muldoon told the jury Patterson said she came to hospital because she thought she had food poisoning.
I didn't say that until I got to Lean Gatha. I thought I had gastro.
A Health Department official Sally Anne Atkinson then began asking Patterson questions about the ingredients for the lunch she has told the jury. Patterson told her she'd bought the mushrooms in one of three suburbs of Melbourne. Patterson says Atkinson got the details wrong.
I didn't say Mount Waverley, I said Glen Waverley.
She said Atkinson was wrong to claim that Patterson described the mushrooms as smelling funny.
No, I don't think I said smelled funny. My memory has always just been that it was a very strong or pungent smell. She's wrong about that word.
Patterson agreed she didn't return sally on Atkinson's call on August two or answer a text message she sent. She said she told I Canson the names of streets in the Melbourne area where she might have bought the mushrooms. Bart said she had no memory of the actual purchase and no bank record of the transaction. On August five, when being interviewed by police, Patterson told them she had been very very helpful to the Department of Health as they tried to investigate the source of the poisoning.
I suggest you weren't quote very very helpful to the department at all.
I was trying to be that was untrue.
In fact, you sent them on a wild goose chase trying to locate this Asian grocer correct or incorrect?
Incorrect?
And I suggest that the reason that you didn't answer some of those texts from her was because you did not want to be pressed for details about the Asian grocery store, because that story was not true. It was a lie that you used dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer correct or incorrect.
Incorrect.
You lied about the source of the death cap mushrooms because you knew you were guilty of having deliberately poisoned your four lunch guests.
Incorrect.
And what was Patterson telling health professionals about her children. Patterson has said she served the children leftover beef Wellington with the mushrooms and pastry scraped off the I feel at stake on the Sunday night. In a police interview, Patterson's son said, Mum said it was leftovers. Police asked Patterson's daughter how she knew that their Sunday night dinner
was leftovers from the lunch. She told police Mum told me, But Patterson disagreed that she told the kids these were leftovers from the lunch.
I only remember telling the kids on the Sunday that it was leftovers. I don't remember telling them anything about them being lunch leftovers.
You told various people at Liam gath the hospital that you'd fed leftovers of the Beef Wellington with mushrooms and pastries scraped off to your children.
I did.
A nurse Kylie Ashton gave evidence.
Aaron Patterson said on her first visit to the hospital on the Monday morning that the children had eaten leftovers from the Beef Wellington.
Patison denied this.
There were no conversations about the children eating leftovers in that first presentation.
Patterson agreed.
She told another nurse the children had no symptoms and hadn't eaten any mushrooms, and she told doctor Chris Webster that she didn't want the children to be stressed or panicked by getting pulled out of school.
I want to suggest that surely the last thing you would have been thinking about, if you thought genuinely that your children had potentially eaten a fatal poison, that you'd be worrying about whether they'd be panicked or stressed about being pulled out of school.
I didn't think they'd eaten a fatal poison because it was made clear to me that the issue was mushrooms and they had not eaten the mushrooms.
I suggest that you lied to each of these medical personnel about your children eating leftovers of the beef Wellington. Agree or disagree? Disagree. I suggest that you were reluctant to have the children medically assessed. Agree or disagree.
Initially I was, but before not for too long. I agreed they needed to come in, and I arranged for that.
I suggest that you were initially reluctant because you knew they had not eaten leftover beef Wellington from the lunch.
Incorrect.
You knew that their lives were not at risk. Correct or incorrect?
Incorrect?
The court's already heard that Webster said to Patterson the children needed to come in, that they could be scared and dead or alive.
You loved your children, correct, I still love them. When Dr Webster told you at ten am that the children could die, you must have realized it was really necessary to get them to the hospital.
I suggest I didn't think that it was a real risk at that time.
And you did not take immediate steps to make that happen. Correct.
That's correct.
In fact, you did not call Simon Patterson until more than an hour later. Correct.
I don't know how long it was.
Child Protection work at Katrina Crips spoke to Patterson on August one.
You told her that when you served the meal, you dished up all of the plates and put tu aside for the children. Did you say that to Miss Crips on the first of August twenty twenty three.
No.
I suggest that you did tell Miss Crips that you'd put aside two beef wellingtons for your children on two plates. Agree or disagree disagree? I suggest that you were trying to convey to Miss Creeps that you had prepared this meal not only for the lunch guests and yourself, but also for your children. Agree or disagree disagree.
Rogers wanted to know if Patison thought she had food poisoning, and she knew her relatives wheel, why would she feed her children parts of the same meal on the Sunday night.
I suggest that you told well over a dozen people, including your son and daughter, health professionals, child protection workers, police, and a friend, that you'd fed your children the same meal that you had served at lunch on twenty nine July twenty twenty three.
I was pretty clear it was the meal minus the mushrooms in pastry, so not the same.
But yes, in terms of you making representations to people that you fed your children the leftovers from the lunch. I suggest that that was a deliberate lie correct or incorrect?
Incorrect.
You knew that what you fed your children on Sunday evenings did not contain death cap mushrooms. Agree or disagree, it didn't contain any mushrooms. You repeatedly told police you had scraped the mushrooms off in an attempt to explain why the children were not sick. Agree or disagree.
I don't think I repeatedly told them, but I did tell them.
You told a number of people you had scraped the mushrooms off correct, correct, And I suggest that was an attempt to explain why your children were not sick. No, you told the lie about feeding leftovers from the beef Wellington to your children, I suggest because it gave you some distance from a deliberate poisoning.
I don't see how it could, but I disagree anyway.
Later, when asked about her claims to have previously foraged for mushrooms, including porcini and shittaki, Pattison also took issue with the children's own evidence. She said she'd picked mushrooms while out on walks with the kids. When asked if his mum or dad had ever picked a mushroom. Patterson's son told police not that I know of. When Nanette Rogers asked her why her daughter had told police they'd never seen her pick mushrooms, Patterson said her daughter was
wrong about that. Patterson also said her children were wrong in their recollection of why they were absent from the lunch. She said her daughter had asked to go to a movie instead, and she said that the daughter was wrong when she told police that Patterson had said the lunch was to talk about adult stuff. She said her son was wrong when he told police the lunch was just for the five adults.
Rogers put it.
To Patterson that she deliberately excluded the children because she didn't.
Want them anywhere near the poisoned food.
Patterson denied that, coming up one big question about a lot of little beef Wellington's. Why were they individual beef Wellington's anyway. The recipe are in Patterson used was from Nagi Mayhashi's cookbook recipe Tin Eats, but that recipe includes one large piece of beef which is wrapped in mushrooms and pastry and baked, then sliced into individual serves. Patterson made individual Wellington's, which she described as looking like pasties.
Your evidence to this jury is that you use individual I fill at stakes because you could not source a single long I fill it log.
Yeah, I couldn't find one anywhere else. That's right.
I suggest that that's not true. I suggest you could have sourced a whole I fill it portion from one of the various supermarkets or Butcher's in Leanngatha or Crumbarough.
I may have been able to, but I don't know.
But you chose I suggest individual portions. I feel it because you wanted to serve individual portions of beef Wellington incorrect.
Patterson told the jury that she recalled once putting mushrooms from an Asian grocery store into her dehydrator.
Because I remember I remember after using the dehydrator quite a few times and noticing how crisp things were when they came out after quite a number of hours. I remember feeling the mushrooms in the tupperware container and they weren't like that. They were quite rubbery, so I thought perhaps some air had got in, so I whacked them in the dehydrator for a couple of hours. That's my
memory anyway, and when did you do that? Sometime between when I bought them and when I used them, I don't know when.
How many times?
How many times?
What did you put them in the dehydrator?
Just the ones?
I suggest that you told Sally and Atkinson that you did not initially use the mushrooms from the Asian grocer because you were worried they would be too overpowering. Yeah.
I think I did say that if.
They were overpowering, surely you would have been worried about them being too overpowering or strong for the beef war Wellington.
No, I didn't think that. I thought it was the perfect.
Dish for them to put in your special meal.
Yeah.
Patterson previously told the court she planned to have gastric bypass surgery to help her more effectively manage her weight, and that she felt she'd need assistance in getting the kids to and from school while she recovered from the procedure, but she claimed she was embarrassed to admit that to her guests. Patterson told the jury a pre surgery assessment was booked for September twenty twenty three at a Melbourne cosmetic dermatology clinic.
Now that you've had a chance to read that material. Firstly, do you accept that the Enriched Clinic does not offer, and has never offered, gastric bypass surgery?
Yes?
Do you accept that the Enriched Clinic does not offer, and has never offered pre surgery assessments relating to gastric bypass surgery?
I do.
And Thirdly, do you accept that the Enriched Clinic only conducts examinations and procedures related to the skin and its appendages such as hair, are nails.
I do.
The trial continues on Thursday. You can read all the latest from our reporters on the ground in more Well, John Ferguson and Ellie Dudley right now at the Australian dot com dot au