Silence. All stand and remain standing. All persons having business before this honorable Court are commander to give their attendance, and they shall be heard. God save the King, be seated. Please.
This is what the court has heard every sitting day. When Justice Christopher Bill first makes his entrance into the room, He's had a huge presence in this trial. Here's the umpire, but for the most part, the jurors haven't heard much from him since the first day back in April. Now, in the final days of the trial of Aaron Patterson, it is Justice Bill's time to direct the jury. Today he started to deliver his instructions and will break down what they all mean in this episode. I'm Brook Greywick
Craig and this is the Mushroom Cook. It's day thirty six of Aaron Patterson's murder trial, and once again I'm joined by my colleague court reporter Laura Pusseller.
The end is near, isn't it, Brooke.
Yes, we've just hit week nine.
It was meant to be a six week trial, so it's fair to say that this is dragged on for longer than any of us expected, and we still have a few more days to go. But we're nearly there.
Yes, we are.
So.
As I said in the intro, today was all about Justice Bill's charge. Can you explain to our listeners what that is?
So?
The charge is the technical term for essentially the judge's instructions. So at the end of every trial, once the prosecution and defense have delivered their closing addresses, the attention then turns to the judge, who will explain the legal principles and summarize the evidence of the case before the jury begin their deliberations. It was a couple of weeks ago now, but we spoke about all the lessons the jurors have
been given in the course of this trial. They've been given lessons on mushrooms, on phones, on even computers, and now it felt like today they were being given a lesson on the law. Justice Bill spent a large portion of today really explaining a lot of legal principles to them, and hopefully by the end of this episode, our listeners also feel like they've learnt something about our justice system, especially if they've never sat on a jury before.
When Justice Bill entered the courtroom today, he told the jury he had prepared an eighty six page chronology to help them when they start their deliberations.
Yes, this seemed like a very comprehensive document, and Justice Bill even told the jury that he had color coded it to make it easy for them to navigate. So essentially, the chronology covers all of the events relevant to the trial, starting way back in two thousand and seven, which was the year Erin married Simon, and then it ran all the way through to twenty twenty three, obviously the year
of the lunch. He explained to the jury that this chronology included references to the evidence that the jury have heard in this case and reference to the exhibits as well, and it almost would function as an index for them when they're making their way through all of the evidence in this case.
Justice Bill then went on to tell the jury that emotions such as prejudice and sympathy should not play a part in their decision.
This was the first topic that Justice Bihl spoke to the jury about today. After running them through the chronology, he explained that they must decide the facts of the case and no one else. And this is when he started to talk about those two things you just mentioned brook prejudice and sympathy. He started with prejudice and said they should not let it enter their mind. Here is more of what he said about this. These are his words, it's not his voice.
You should not, for example, be influenced by the mere fact that she cooked the fatal meal that caused the deaths of Gail, Heather and Don. The issue is not whether she is in some sense responsible for the tragic consequences of the lunch, but whether the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable dab that she is criminally responsible.
He also told the jury that they should not be prejudiced against Erin simply because she has admitted to telling lies and admitted to concealing evidence. He said, this is a.
Court of law, not a court of morals.
Turning to sympathy, he said they should not let it cloud their judgment, but he clarified that he wasn't asking them to be inhuman. None of us are robots. He said, while it was normal to feel for the Pattersons, given what has befallen their family, they must make sure to not let this feeling interfere with their deliberations.
Justice Bill then spoke on the unprecedented media attention around the trial and how it has excited much public comment. Here's what he said.
No one in the media, in the public, in your workplace, or in your homes has sat in that jury box throughout the trial, seeing and hearing all the witnesses, mostly in person. You and you alone are best placed to decide whether the prosecution has proven their case beyond reasonable doubt.
He told them that if they had heard or seen any of the coverage, they must not let it influence them in any way. Here's more of what he said.
An accused person has the right to remain silent. It's not for her to prove her innocence.
He instructed the jury to assess her evidence in the exact same way they would assess any of the other witness's evidence. He said, after doing this, they would reach one of four conclusions. He said, if they think her evidence is true, they must find her not guilty. He said, if they were not sure if her evidence is true, but they think it might be, they would have reasonable doubt and they must find her not guilty. He then said, if they only prefer the prosecution case to her evidence,
they must also find her not guilty. And finally, he said, if they don't think her evidence is true. They must then turn their minds to the execution case and whether they have proved their allegations beyond reasonable doubt before they would be able to find her guilty.
Justice Bill then moved on to the evidence of Aaron's good character and how it can be used by the jury. He said the evidence shows she was a good daughter in law, a good in law to Simon's siblings, and a good mother to her two children.
He reminded them that Erin had generously loaned up to four hundred thousand dollars to Simon's siblings and their partners, and he also brought the jury back to the evidence of Detective Leading Senior Constable Stephen Eppingstall, who said Erin had no criminal history. Justice Bill told the jury that they could use evidence of good character when determining the likelihood that Erin committed the offenses as alleged, even though
it went without saying. He reminded the jury that just because there was evidence of her good character, it didn't mean they must find her not guilty. He told them you should keep in mind a person who has previously been of good character can commit a crime for the first time.
Justice Bill then started walking the jury through different types of evidence, and he started with tendency. He said that Aaron said she had a tendency to forage for mushrooms.
He then started summarizing the evidence the jury have heard about Erin foraging for mushrooms, but he really made it clear to the jury that he could not possibly summarize every single piece of evidence that the jury have heard about this topic. He took them back to Erin's evidence and reminded them how she told them that she started
foraging in twenty twenty during COVID lockdowns. He explained that she said she foraged in the curran Baro Botanic gardens in the nearby Leeanngatha rail trail and on her properties. He said she was mainly picking field mushrooms, but she was also confident enough to pick other interesting ones like slippery jacks and honey mushrooms. He reminded them that she said she bought a dehydrator in April twenty twenty three to preserve the mushrooms she was foraging, as well as
other food. He also took them to her evidence that in around May and June twenty twenty three, she remembered putting mushrooms she had foraged into a container with other dried mushrooms. This was the container that she said she grabbed when she was cooking the mushroom duck cell for the beef Wellington, and said she tipped its contents into
the paste because it was too bland. At the time, she said she believed it only contained dried mushrooms from an Asian grosser, but later she realized there was a possibility it contained foraged mushrooms as well.
Laura, after this summary, did Justice Bill explain how the jury can then use this evidence?
He did, and he told them that if they did find that Aaron had a tendency to pick and eat wild mushrooms, including putting them in the meals she served to others, including her children, or if they think it is a reasonable possibility that she had this tendency to do that, they may consider that it increases the possibility that the death cap ushrooms ended up in the beef
Wellingtons accidentally rather than deliberately. He reminded them that the prosecution had argued that the only evidence that Erin foraged for edible mushrooms came out of her mouth, and that she was a self confessed liar and that they couldn't believe this claim. So this really is like a two
step process. The first step for the jury is to actually decide whether or not they believe Erin had this tendency to forage for mushrooms and then eat them, and then after that consider whether it increases the possibility that this was an accident rather than a deliberate act.
Now, let's move on to what Justice Bill said about hearsay evidence. Can you explain to our listeners what it is.
Hearsay is a term that I think a lot of people bandy around, and today Justice Beer really nutted out what this means. And it really revolves around out of court statements that the jury are not hearing in testimony. And in this case, a lot of the heres statements stemmed from the remarks made by heather Don and Gale before they died. Sadly, since they did pass away, they're not able to give evidence in this case about what
was said at the lunch and what they observed. But in the days before they passed, they had conversations with both Simon and Ian, who wore later asked questions at trial about these conversations to remind our listeners. Simon told the jury that he remembered Heather asking him the day after the lunch whether Erin was short of crockery because she noticed that she had eaten off a different plate at the lunch. Ian also recalled Heather making the same comment.
Simon also testified about what his parents told him around the conversations at the lunch. He testified that they told him that Erin had told the guests at the lunch that she had been diagnosed with cancer. But Justice Beer warned the jury today that there was a need for caution when considering this evidence because it was hearsay. Simon and Ian are bringing these statements from the deceased into
the courtroom. They didn't come from them themselves. Justice Biale said, while Simon and Ian might be truthful witnesses, errors can occur. They may have not accurately remembered what Heather, Don and Gale said to them, so the jury must take this unreliability into account.
Justice Bill also spoke about expert evidence, and he provided an example from digital forensics expert Matthew Serell.
He explained to the jury that usually witnesses aren't allowed to give their opinions in trials, but experts are the exception. He described doctor Cerell as an expert in his field, which is why he was handpicked to give evidence in this trial. Our listeners may remember that doctor Cerell gave a lot of evidence around Erin's phone records and the conclusions that could be drawn from them, but Justice Beial reminded the jury today that doctor Cerell said the conclusions
had a lot of limits. Justice Bill said that doctor Cerel's evidence about Erin's possible visits to Locke and Outram were not evidence that she actually visited those postcodes. He said that the connections of phone may make to a base station can be consistent with and support a proposition, but doesn't demonstrate a proposition in and of itself.
Justice Bill also went on to talk about prior inconsistent statements once again, Laura, can you explain to our listeners what this is?
I really hope our listeners are following along with my explanations. It's been a long day, but I promise I'm trying my hardest. Justice Bill explained today that prior inconsistent statements refer to the statements that a witness made before the trial even started using Erin as an example. He told the jury that there were statements Erin made in the days after the lunch that appeared inconsistent with the statements
she made in the witness box. In one example, Justice Beal took the jury to Erin's record of interview with Constable Eppingstall. He asked her whether she had ever foraged
for mushrooms in the past, and she replied never. But Justice Biel then reminded the jury of the evidence Erin gave in the trial that we actually touched on earlier in the episode Brook, where Erin spoke at length about the fact she had forage for mushrooms for many years and this was something that she had become quite confident in doing. Justice Biel told the jury that they might be less willing to accept a witness's evidence if they did make an inconsistent statement.
And Justice Bill will continue his charge tomorrow.
He will, And just before the jury left for the day, he said to them that he would provide a little update on the trial, and he simply said, you don't need to bring your toothbrush tomorrow. He didn't say anything more. But what we can take away from that is that he is indicating that the jury will not be sequestered tomorrow in the afternoon, but.
I think it's safe to say that that will be happening later this week. And when it happens, we'll tell you what sequestering means for this jury. But in the meantime, go to the mushroomcook dot com dot a U for more