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During the accused killer's second week of evidence, it's put to her whether a clinic she says she had an appointment booked at actually offered gastric bypass surgery. She's also pressed by the prosecutor on if she really loved her in laws.
Victoria's mushroom mystery, the mushroom lunch that claimed three lives.
An Australian family's meal is now the center of a homicide investigation.
The bizarre tragedy now grabbing global headlines.
Aaron Patterson's alleged victims died after eating a family lunch she'd serve them at her home.
I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest. Four of the guests of that lunch were much loved members of this church.
Only one will ever return.
People are feeling very heavy with having lost such wonderful people.
Today, Aaron Pattison remained here inside her home.
She's continued to plead.
Her innocence.
In a court room in Country Victoria, Aaron Patterson is on trial accused of using death cap mushrooms to kill. She's pleaded not guilty to murdering three of her former in laws and attempting to kill a fourth the town's church pastor. It's up to the jurors to decide what
happened when Pattison's loved ones sat down to eat. Aaron Patterson is into her second week giving evidence and she's still being cross examined by Crown Prosecutor Nnette Rodgers sc Now, she has been asked quite a bit about gastric bypass surgery.
She's previously said in her evidence that she when she was referring to potentially needing some support from various members of the family around the time of the lunch, including her estranged husband, that the medical procedure that she was sort of referring to, she says, was the fact that she was planning to undergo weight loss surgery.
Yeah, and that was a question that she was really pressed on during her evidence by the Crown Prosecutor Annette Rodgers. She was asked whether or not this is the particular clinic that she went to or had plans to go to, and that was an appointment on September thirteen, twenty twenty three, the accused woman said, But she also reiterated that that was canceled two days earlier on September eleven, twenty twenty three.
But she maintained in her evidence throughout the trial that she wanted to have this gashik band surgery and she wanted to keep it a secret. And that's part of the reason why she let her family members believe that she was ill and potentially needing surgery in the months that followed the fatal lunch, because she was hoping that that was something that she could keep private because she
was embarrassed about. And that's when we heard a little bit more about this particular clinic that she mentioned in her evidence.
Yeah, and the way that the name of this clinic has come out is through Aaron Patterson's own evidence with the prosecution. Let's hear a little bit more about those questions as Nannette Rodgers really pressed her about this particular appointment.
This is voiced by actors.
You had an appointment scheduled for eleven am on the thirteenth of September twenty twenty three at that clinic in South Yarra agree or disagree.
I thought it was a different suburb.
Did you have an appointment scheduled for eleven am on thirteenth of September twenty twenty three. Leaving aside the location of the clinic.
That sounds about right.
You canceled that appointment on eleventh September twenty twenty three.
Agree or disagree that'd be about right.
Yes, that appointment was with Miss Isabella eng a registered nurse. Agree or disagree, I don't know. The Enrich Clinic does not offer gastric bypass surgery or gastric sleeve surgery. Agree or disagree.
I don't know.
The Enrich Clinic does not conduct assessments relating to gastric bypass surgery or gastric sleeve surgery. Agree or disagree.
I don't know. But I'm a bit puzzled in what way.
Well that was I had an appointment with them, and that's what my memory is that the appointment was for.
So that's why I'm puzzled.
Your appointment at the Enriched Clinic, the appointment that you have told this jury about on Friday, had nothing to do with gastric bypass surgery.
Agree or disagree, Well, it would have been related to weight loss surgery. Perhaps it was a different procedure I was doing through them, and I was looking into lipersuction as well.
When you gave sworn evidence to this jury last Friday that you had a pre surgery appointment for gastric bypass surgery booked in for early September with the Enriched Clinic in Melbourne, that was a lie. Agree or disagree, No, it wasn't a lie.
That's what my memory was.
Now.
As well as this gastric bypass surgery, the accused woman's also been asked quite a bit around the purpose for this particular lunch. Yes, and she's been questioned around why
is it that she invited these family members. We've heard her say through her evidence that she just really wanted to have the family over to her house, that she wanted Heather Wilkinson to see her garden because of a comment Gail Patt and her mother in law had said previously, and that she just wanted to connect again with the family. And we have seen her become quite emotional during parts of her evidence when she was giving the reasons, particularly
for the Wilkinsons being invited to her home. She said they'd never both been there before, certainly not for lunch.
But she really wanted to show her gratitude.
Was the type of phrasing she was using in her answer that they had always been there for her.
She remembered that Heather Wilkinson had.
Been a real support to her, particularly when her daughter was quite young, and she said that, yeah, she felt like it was a good time to show some support to them, and she also felt like the family was sort of shifting away from her a little bit, and she saw this as a really good opportunity, in her words, to bring everybody back together. This was something that she said, she really enjoyed that last lunch and this was another
lunch that she wanted to have again. But she was asked many many questions during her evidence as well about why the kids weren't present, if that was a deliberate decision or not. It was put to her that some of the other witnesses had said that the kids deliberately weren't there, but in her evidence she said, no, no, no, it was her children that wanted to go to the movies, and it didn't matter if they were going to be there or not.
In her mind, if they wanted to go to the film, that was perfectly fine.
When she was asked, is the reason that they weren't there that you wanted to discuss this medical issue.
She said no in regards to that, and she was taken through.
As well as this relationship that she said she had with the different family members and wanting to, in her words, thank them by having them over for this lunch, about her relationship, particularly with Don and Gail Patterson, and she's said in her evidence that she didn't need to give them a reason to come to the lunch. She was questioned on whether she'd invited the Wilkinsons as a way to encourage either Don and Gail or Simon to come to her home, and she said no, that wasn't the case.
In terms of Don and Gail, she said she didn't need a reason, that they loved her and.
That they would have come just from getting an invitation.
But she's been taken through a lot of these Facebook messages, messages with online friends that the listeners and the jury have heard a lot about now, these messages in early December twenty twenty two, where she's speaking particularly around financial issues, and she was questioned a lot about whether that was to do with Don and Gail's role regarding the children's school fees.
And this came out because her evidence, as you just mentioned, Penny was that she was loved by her in laws and that she had a great relationship with them.
She found that they were really, really supportive.
And she wanted to spend time with them, hence why she invited them in and Heather over for lunch. But then we heard as well a lot about these Facebook messages where there was expletive written messages read out to the jury, and Aaron Patterson was asked whether or not they were her true feelings about her family. She maintained know that she was just frustrated at that time. But again and again we heard from Nannette Rogers whether or not that was correct or did you have two faces?
Yeah, we'll hear a little bit more of this evidence now.
Now, this follows Aaron Patterson being asked a number of times about what she said to other witnesses, including in her police interview, about loving Don and Gail Patterson.
I suggest that you didn't love them, correct or incorrect.
That's not true.
I suggest that you were angry that they took Simon's side in your argument with him in twenty twenty two about the child allowance. That's not true, and that feeling towards them continued correct or incorrect incorrect. In fact, you had two faces, a public face of appearing to have a good relationship with Don and Gail as shown to people like Simon, Anna, Tanya, Matt, Ruth Dubois, Professor Stewart and police in your record of interview. Agree or disagree?
Are you asking me to agree if I had two faces?
I'm asking you, do you agree that you had a public face of appearing to have a good relationship with Don and Gail.
I had a good relationship with Don and Gail.
I suggest that your private face was the one you showed in your Facebook messenger use correct or incorrect incorrect, And how you truly felt about Don and Gail was at as you expressed it in your Facebook messages correct or incorrect, incorrect, And that is how you really felt about Simon Patterson as expressed to your Facebook friends correct or incorrect, incorrect.
Now, another part that the jury has been taken through a sort of at different times of the evidence is this alleged conversation that Aaron Patterson says Simon Patterson had with her at the hospital at Monash Hospital in the days after the lunch while she.
Was being treated.
Now, she says that her estranged husband asked her, is that how you poisoned my parents? Referring to a dehydrateor following a discussion about dried mushrooms. Now, it has been mentioned during her cross examination that she says, this is the first time the thought crossed her mind that there was a possibility there were foraged mushrooms in the meal that she had served her guests.
Yeah, Nedette Roger said, this is why she was pressing the accused woman on the order of events that then followed this conversation with Simon Patterson in the hospital room, and this is in her evidence. Aaron Patterson said her estrange husband was only in the room with her for about five minutes. In fact, she said that she was largely there with the two kids in the room, and when he was there, he was on his phone or
out in the hallway on his phone. And this was this conversation occurred during a five minute window when they were left alone. And as I said, that's why the questioning was about the timeframe. What happened next? And Aaron Patterson said, yes, after I left hospital, this is what I did. This is I got rid of the dehydrator and I was worried, and in her evidence she was worried that the kids could be taken away if there
was any sort of connection there. But as you said, Penny, she maintained that that was the first time in that hospital that she really started to think maybe there was another type of mushrooms that made their way into her meal.
Yeah.
And she was asked on whether so she had this conversation and then in after she's got out of hospital that next day she's driven her children to school, she says, then she's got rid of the dehydrator. She was asked, at any point did she ever tell any medical professionals that there was a chance that there could have been any sort of foraged mushrooms in this and she said no, never, And her evidence is that she's never told anyone through this whole process that there was a chance that there
were these foraged mushrooms that potentially in that meal. Now she's been asked quite a bit about I naturalist, and the jury and the listeners have heard this word a lot.
This citizen science website, as it's been.
Referred to, where people record different sightings of different flaora and some of those being mushrooms now, she was asked about whether she remembered visiting certain Eye Naturalists posts and different parts of the website, and she's said through her evidence that she doesn't remember ever going on I Naturalists.
But she does a dispute that she may have penny. And this is at a time where the prosecution alleged that Aaron Patterson was also ordering dinner online from a nearby pub, and she said she also doesn't remember making that order, but it was made under her name, with her address and her phone number, and she said that.
It could possibly have been her.
She's not saying it wasn't her, but in both of those instances she just said she doesn't have a memory of.
It at all.
Yeah, And the prosecution, as you'll hear through this bit of evidence, is talking about the I Naturalist post being viewed on a computer that was seized from Aaron Patterson's home and also that pub order being made a sort of the same time, and they're putting this to the witness in Aaron Patterson, the accused woman. So this is quite lengthy, but we want you to hear the way this went back and forth in court as part of the cross examination. This is the words of Nannette Rogers
and Aaron Patterson. It's voiced by actors.
You knew how to use the map function on I Naturalist. Correct Or is it your evidence that you don't remember?
I don't remember ever using the site, so questions like that are difficult to answer.
Or did you use the site to utilize the map function?
I don't remember using the site.
I suggest you knew how to click on the little icons on the map to bring up the relevant post. Correct or incorrect. I don't know you did that for this I Naturalist post about deathcap mushrooms in Morabin correct or incorrect?
Well, somebody did, and that somebody could have been me.
Now I want to take you to another part of the exhibit. I've asked you questions about this previously, but my specific question in terms of this is that against the visit count on the left hand side, there's the number two. Do you see that?
Yes?
I do?
You had visited the URL once before on this device? Correct?
Yes, correct, and I believe it was two seconds earlier.
I suggest you're wrong about that. Correct or incorrect?
Ah, I'm correct.
Can you go please to page eleven record two, so on the same date that we've been talking about. Twenty eighth of May twenty three, at seven twenty three pm, you navigated to the web address of the current Borough Middle Hotel or Middle Pub. Correct.
It looks like somebody did, yes.
Three minutes after you had accessed the I Naturalist page at seven twenty pm correct or correct.
Three minutes after somebody did.
Are you suggesting that it might have been your son?
I'm not suggesting anything.
Are you suggesting it was your daughter?
I'm not suggesting anything.
Who lived in your house on the twenty eighth of May twenty twenty.
Two, myself and my two children.
In terms of the evidence, there's been evidence that there was a purchase confirmed by the curran Borough Middle Hotel, a receipt provided in your name for the purchase of meals and the bottle of soft drink utilizing the hotel's online ordering provider. Your phone number was ending in seven eighty three correct. Correct, and the name. The evidence has been that the name entered into the website was yours.
Correct.
You heard that evidence? Yes, I suggest that it was you who placed the order correct or incorrect?
I don't know now.
Aaron Patterson has also been taken to the circumstances again of this particular lunch by the prosecution, and she was asked a bit about the play that this meal was served on in her kitchen and her dining room on that day.
Yeah, and that was over multiple days of her evidence that the prosecution went back to the plates and how many did you own and what do they look like and what color were they and here's the evidence of Ian Wilkinson and is this something you agree or disagree with? And Aaron Patterson said, I disagree. Her memory of the plates that she owned, she told the jury was that she actually didn't.
Have a full set of plates. She did think that she might have.
Some smaller black sort of side plates, but largely, she said that was a little bit sort of ad hoc. She did have some of that were red on the top and darker on the bottom, but she didn't remember deliberately in any way, shape or form selecting certain plates. She didn't remember plating up plates for different people. In fact, her memory was when she went to grab her plate to sit down, it was the only plate left and that's the reason she took it.
Yeah, And through her evidence, she's been brought back to this moment as well through the tree script as well, that she says she was making the gravy, that she turned away. When she turned back, four of the plates were gone, and she'd sort of said, grab a plate, guys, But that then she took her plate over to that to that seating area, and that there were no assigned seats or assigned plates. Now it was put to the accused by the prosecution an allegation of did you serve
your food on a particular colored plate? And was that a non poisoned meal? Was the words that Thenette Rogers used, and she denied that.
She said that all of these meals were the.
Same, and she was asked quite a bit about what had happened after this meal. Now she's given evidence that after the meal she ate quite a bit of orange cake, and Aaron Patterson's account is that she then made herself ill after that. Now she was asked about that incident, but also how much she had eaten of the particular beef Wellington, and she's gone back and forth with saying it was around half, it was around a quarter, around
a third. She used the words I didn't have a measuring tape, so she doesn't know exactly she says how
much beef Welling she ate. She also says she couldn't be sure whether or not that beef Wellington came up when she was sick after the cake, and when she was pressed on that and to whether she had said these things in her evidence as a way to basically explain why she wasn't as sick as these other guests, Aaron Patterson again disputed that allegation from the prosecution, and she said, no, that's not the case, that she genuinely was sick, but she hadn't told anyone about that.
She told the jury that yes, I told you all that I vomited, but I never told the jury in my mind what I vomited up. And she was asked a lot about the time of day potentially this happened, and she said, you couldn't put a pinpoint a time, but it was sort of.
Late afternoon before evening.
And it got a little bit tense in the room with a bit of questioning back and forth between Aaron Patterson and Annette Rodgers at this point when Aaron was like, well, I can't tell you what I vomited up. I don't know if it was beef Wellington it's vomit. I can't tell you what's in it. And she said, look, it could have been beans or corn. Maybe then i'd be able to tell you what was in it. And Nett Rogers turned around quite quickly and said, well, I never
said that there was corn in the meal. And at that point there was I see a lot of heads turning and looking around in the courtroom as at exchange got a little bit uncomfortable.
Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit more in a moment about Aaron Patterson and the symptoms and the illness that she said she then suffered as a result of this meal. But first we'll take you through again some of the medical evidence. But this is in relation to what the prosecution has been putting to Aaron Patterson about what she did after the meal and why she did what she did at that time. Now, Aaron Patterson presented two days after the fatal lunch tu Lee and Gatha Hospital.
That morning, after dropping her children at a bus to go to school, she says that she arrived at the hospital and it's been agreed through the evidence around eight oh five in the morning that she's then left the hospital and then she's returned again around an hour and forty minutes, just over an hour and a half later
and represented at Lee and Gatha Hospital. Now it was put to Aaron Patterson was the reason that she had left this particular hospital because she wanted to get away from there and try and cover her tracks.
Yeah, we had there was an hour and thirty eight minutes, was my recollection, Penny of how long the other witnesses believe that Aaron Patterson was gone from the hospital. For her evidence is that she arrived not really prepared to
be admitted to hospital. She thought she might have some IV fluids and then you know, be sent home with some gashtro But her account was when she found out that she was potentially going to be sent to Melbourne, she needed to do some things first, so she said she went home, she looked after the animals, got some stuff organized for her daughter, and then was asked if perhaps she had a bit of a lay down during that time, and she maintained that no, she wasn't trying
to cover her tracks in this period. She denied that she was leaving the hospital to make plans and was you know, fearful to learn that maybe medical stuff were cottoning on to the fact that there was death cap mushrooms in the meal earlier than expected. These were things she really denied, again and again and again she said, no, no, no, this is not the case at all, as the questions came thick and fast, and.
Will take you through this in the evidence that you're hearing, voiced by actors, in the context, and also in the timing that it's been heard by the court.
So this first little.
Exchange that you're hearing is in regards to how Aaron Patterson was feeling at the time that she first presented at the Lee and Gatha Hospital.
I want to suggest to you that you were stressed when you were at the hospital on this first presentation correct or incorrect.
I probably was very stressed, yes.
And I suggest that the reason you were stressed was because doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning for the lunch guests correct or incorrect.
That definitely was a cause of anxiety. Yeah.
I suggest that you were shocked that the doctors were on to death cap mushrooms so quickly.
I wouldn't put it like that.
Well, how would you put it.
At the idea that we might have eaten those things?
I'm suggesting that you were shocked that the doctors were on to death cat mushrooms so quickly correct or incorrect, incorrect, and you were worried that you were going to get caught correct or incorrect, incorrect, and further that you weren't prepared to answer questions about why death cat mushrooms were in the meal correct or incorrect.
I don't think anyone ever tried to ask me that question, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Now.
She's told the court, as you mentioned, that she needed to get some things for her children, including.
A ballet bag. She says that she had to pack for her daughter.
Now.
She noted in her evidence she was pushed on whether her daughter had ballet that Daynette Rodgers said it was a Monday and that she didn't have ballet usually on a Monday, but Aaron Patterson insisted that this ballet bag was something that she packed.
Yeah, she recalled that there was a concert rehearsal of sorts. She couldn't remember exactly where it was, but she was very very specific of her on her memory that this is one of the things that I needed to do. I needed to a home and pack this bag and get it ready for her daughter's ballet. And it was later mentioned that Simon Patterson, her strange husband, had to
go and cancel that appointment. But this was part of the questioning around whether or not she panicked and needed to go and make plans because you know, she was being found out for these alleged crimes. But as I said earlier, she denied every single suggestion that that was the case.
And we'll hear a little bit more of the evidence now. This is again regarding Simon Patterson and the evidence that he's given before this element that you're about to hear. Aaron Patterson was disputing his evidence where he told the court that she told him on a phone call she'd gone home and laid down for around forty five minutes.
She said she didn't think it would be that long that she laid down for, but she had already by the time you hear what you're about to hear, been going back quite a few times with the prosecutor about how long that laid down was.
Surely that's the last thing you would do in these circumstances.
It might be the last thing you'd do, but it was something I.
Did after you'd been told by medical staff that you had potentially ingested a life threatening poison, isn't it. The last thing that you would do is to lie down in those circumstances.
They didn't tell me it was life threatening.
They didn't tell you your life was at risk.
No at all, not in that first conversation.
No, No one told you. No medical witness told you, No medical member of staff told you that you were at risk, that your life was at risk in that first presentation at Leanngatha Hospital.
No excuse me, Nobody between eight oh five and eight ten told me my life was at risk.
No, but they told you that they suspected death cap mushroom poisoning.
Correct, they did.
You left Leanngatha Hospital under your own steam, walked out. I did walk out, And from the CCTV footage of you leaving the hospital, there's no indication that you're in pain. Would you agree with that? No outward sign?
I have no idea.
We'll be back with more of Aaron Patterson evidence after this. Now, the next thing Aaron Patterson was taken through in detail was as well as what she was doing in this time frame between presenting and then representing a lean Gatha Hospital was what her mobile phone might have been doing, and she was asked about what doctor Cerel, a phone tower expert, has said in his evidence regarding the movements of her mobile phone.
Yeah, in the about hour after or thereabouts that she left the hospital for the first time, we were told that Sirel's evidence was the phone connected to Aaron Patterson was pinging on a cell tower or a base station in the lean Gatha area, which is where she lives and also where the hospital is that she.
Had just left.
But yeah, and then the phone allegedly started to move. Sirel's evidence was it later pinned off the Outreum base station which is southwest of Lean Gathera And Aaron Patterson was shown a map again today that circled Colin Burrough, Lean Gatha, Outram Lock these airs that came out as part of Cerel's evidence, and she was also pointed to a major road and this is something she really questioned the prosecution on and Neett Rodgers was saying, is it possible that you took the main road out of town
to get to Outram And Aaron Patterson's evidence was, no, it's the Beast Highway. It doesn't go to outram and then the subject started to change a little bit, but that map was up on the screen for quite a while. Penny, as there's the line of questioning continued.
Yeah, And Aaron Patterson continued to insist through her evidence that in that time that she left the hospital on this Monday morning, two days after the lunch, that she had simply gone to her home and lean Gatha made the preparations that she needed to make, and that she didn't leave, that she left the hospital to go home, and she left home to go back to the hospital, that she didn't go anywhere else.
That was her evidence.
But we'll hear a little bit more as the court heard this regarding what Aaron Patterson was doing in this just over an hour and a half, an hour and thirty eight minutes, you thought it would be treated, I suggest, as just a case of food poisoning correct or incorrect incorrect.
Once you were told that the medical staff had detected deathcat mushrooms all suspected it, you had to think quickly correct or incorrect incorrect to try and explain why you were not sick correct incorrect, to try and cover your tracks correct or incorrect incorrect, and that's what you spent the one hour and forty minutes doing while you were away from the hospital. Agree or disagree?
What are you saying I was doing.
Thinking about waste to cover your tracks?
Oh okay, you're saying I spent an hour and a half thinking.
Is that what you're suggesting?
Yes, I'm sure I did some thinking in that time, but it was not about covering my tracks.
So we heard as well Aaron Patterson explain to the jury that when she returned to hospital that was because she wanted to get treatment. There was no denying that she wanted to get treatment at all them. It was put to her that other witnesses said that she appeared that she didn't really want to receive treatment. She was stressed, and this is at a point when one of the nurses was trying to canulate her and that so there were sort of questions allegedly from.
The accuse saying, you know, do I need this? This is necessary?
But Aaron Patterson's memory of those conversations were really different. She maintained that she was feeling unwell and she really wanted to get treatment and that's why she went to hospital.
Yeah, she's disputed a few accounts of the medical personnel's evidence, and it was put to her Kylie Ashton, a nurse at the Leanngatha Hospital, whether before she had left initially left the hospital after that first presentation, if she had had a discussion with her about her children, and she says no, She said she was she must be confused as in that nurse in her evidence that there was no conversations about her children until the second time she returned, and then she began having.
Some of this treatment.
Now she also, as people have just heard through the laying down and a couple of other elements of Simon Patterson's evidence, she's questioned and disputed that.
He called her.
She says he called her to ask whether she was at church on the Sunday following the lunch on the Saturday. It was put to her many times by the prosecution as to whether that was the reason that he called, and she said, well, the first thing he said to me was are you at church? So to her she said through her evidence that was the reason of the call.
And she was asked a number of times about the evidence of her teenage son and what happened the day after this lunch when he was going to a flying lesson in tai Abb in Gippsland.
Yeah, there was a bit of back and forth at that point over whether or not he needed to go to the flying lesson, which of the two of them said that they should go or shouldn't go, and which
of them had an unwell bally. Aaron Patterson's evidence was that her son had had said that he had a saw bally around that time, and it was her evidence that she maybe hadn't mentioned it to them, so that there was a little bit of back and forth then about that flying lesson and questions about how long it would have got would have taken penny for them to get there and back.
Yeah, and she sort of mentioned through her evidence that she agreed that this flying instructor who's had his evidence read into the record, that she was quite annoyed and a bit grumpy with him, which is what he said in his evidence, because she had sort of taken this drive that's around an hour and a half to get to this particular airport, and that when she was very close to there, she got this call saying we're not going to be able to do the lesson because of
the weather and she gave evidence that this had happened a number of times, or that at least she had said a number of times to the flying school, it's quite a long drive for me. I know you can't predict the weather, but if you think about an hour out, there's going to be a problem, could you please let me know.
Yeah, And that didn't happen on this occasion, was her evidence. She recalled that they were about ten minutes away when she got the call to say, and this is after they'd already changed the time that they would need to cancel because of the weather. So she said, yes, you was quite frustrated at that time, and she explained that they didn't actually stop, they just turned around and headed on back home.
As part of her son's evidence that's also been mentioned to her in some of her cross examination, she says that the morning that Sunday morning, when he said she seems to be having a coffee at the table, that she was actually having a herbal tea. And she also has given evidence around the sort of the stops for them stopping on the way back from this particular flying lesson.
The son's given evidence that they stopped for a coffee and to get a few other things from a donut van, and she says that she agrees with his evidence that she didn't stop to go to the toilet, but that she can't really remember exactly what happened at that other stop on the way back. Now, in terms of what she's been taken to from the parts of other people's evidence quite a few times, she's also had the evidence of Katrina Cripps, a child protection worker, mentioned to her,
and that includes things about when she says she became ill. Now, this has been touched on a number of times as to whether Aaron Patterson was ill on the Saturday night or not and when that exactly happened. She was questioned quite a bit about that in regards to taking her son's friend home.
Yeah, and the essence of that questioning was around, were you feigning your symptoms essentially to make it look worse than it really was. Did you appear sick? What time did you begin having diarrhea? How frequent was it? When did its art? This witness remembered it was this time. Another witness member it was another time. But Aaron Patterson was really firm in her response as to when those
symptoms started. She maintained that it was later in that Saturday, but when she had to drop her son's friend home, she felt that she was okay to drive, and that was again raised about the drive to the the air school as well, and at what point did she sort of get worse or better and things like that. But yeah, we heard from a number of other witnesses during this trial what their memories were, and Aaron Patterson challenged a few of those today.
Yeah, and she has again really disputed that she ever was pretending to be ill.
She says she absolutely she was sick.
And when it's been put to her that she was showing symptoms or telling people about symptoms, particularly a number of different people speaking about them, that she was speaking about them because she didn't want it to look suspicious that she maybe wasn't as ill as other guests, and she says that's absolutely not the case.
She was shaking her head back and forth side to side when she was saying no, incorrect, that's not true to those responses. She had a whole sort of body language reaction to those, as she maintained, No, no, no, I was not feigning any.
Symptoms at all.
This is how I was feeling and this is why I did what I did, as in go to the hospital and get treatment and end up in Melbourne under observation.
Let's hear a little bit more of the evidence.
This is where Aaron Patterson is speaking with the Crown Prosecutor Nannette Rodgers, specifically about Katrina Cripps, the child protection worker's evidence and what she remembers compared to what Katrina Cripps told the court regarding when she first began to feel sick. She says that was on the Saturday night, but after she had taken the son's friend home.
What is your evidence about that?
My evidence is that I may have said that, but if I did, I was getting confused with the next day.
So you might have told it to Ms Crips. I may have about the sat Today night. I may have, or you might have been referring to how you were feeling on the Sunday. Is that your evidence.
I don't know if I said it or not, but I may have, and I may have been confused with how I felt on Sunday. I've had a lot of people ask me the same questions over and over, and I'd felt unwell and i felt.
Anxious, and I was feeling confused and stressed.
I was doing my best to answer everyone's questions, but I may have got things wrong a little bit along the way.
Now, Aaron Patterson, when she was asked about wanting it to appear that she was sick, which she disputes, she said she was actually sick.
And whether she was seriously unwell.
The words that she used when being questioned by the prosecutor was that she thinks seriously unwell is subjective, and that she said what she said.
Yeah, And she was really at pains to explain that there was a lot of questions coming a lot of people that she'd spoken to on lots of dates and times and alike, and she was really firm in a lot of her answers. But it was at this point that she was like, oh, yes, I'm doing my best to answer everybody's questions. I'm doing my best to sort of understand what you're wanting from me as the Crown prosecutor.
But then the questioning really went a little bit further to Okay, well, if you were unwell, why were you unwell? Were you pretending to be more unwell? And that question you just said Penny, what does seriously unwell really mean?
And it was also put to the accused woman that, in the words of Nannette Rodgers, that she didn't consume even a minute amount of death cat mushrooms at the lunch.
Now, Aaron Patterson said, I have no idea if.
I did or not, but she disputed that at any point she'd been trying to make it appear that she was sick. It was also mentioned to her, which she doesn't dispute, that her liver function tests were normal, Yes, And she was spoken to about a number of other results that she had through this medical journey of a few days in the hospital system. Yeah.
One of the last topics that we heard for this part of Aaron Patterson's evidence was the leftovers and how they got where and why they were there. And we know from another witness and Aaron Patterson was taken through this and it was put to her as part of her examination as well that one of the other police officers who had attended a property while speaking to her on the phone when she was in hospital, had found
leftovers of the lunch in and outdoor bin. And Aaron Patterson was asked what was in those leftovers and how much was there and what was it from? And this is a point in time where she was also asked about the beef Wellingtons that she made. She told the jury that she made six, and it was at this point where His Honor actually interrupted the evidence and said, well, what happened to the six Why did you make a sixth beef Wellington?
Was that for Simon Patterson?
And she said no, it was just made as a spare, And then the questioning turned back to okay, well what was in the bin?
Who'se beef Wellington was it? And how much penny?
Yeah, And in that clarification with Justice Biel, he was really asking when it was put to her by the prosecutor, was that sixth Wellington specifically for Simon Patterson? Should he have suddenly arrived at the lunch that he had said previously he wasn't going to be coming to. And she said no, no, it was just an extra one that she'd made.
But she noted through.
Her evidence as well, this has come up a number of times whether she had made a specifically a beef Wellington for Simon Patterson, and she's been asked by the prosecutor whether that intentionally contained deathcap mushrooms and that she would have given that to him if he arrived. And she's said through her evidence, no, she wouldn't have intentionally given him deathcap mushrooms, but that if he'd come to the lunch, she would have given him a beef Wellington.
As to what was left in the bin, she described it as being part of a beef Wellington, and that she says the pastries and the mushrooms that she'd taken off the kid's food and she was asked a bit about well, where the meat from that had gone, and she said, that went into my kid's stomachs.
That's right now.
Aaron Patterson is still being cross examined. Will bring you more evidence from the trial as the jury he here's it soon.
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