On a cold winter morning at the Green End of Victoria, five people sat down for a meal beef wrapped in pastry with a mushroom paste. Within days, three were dead. Now two years on, the two survivors of that meal are facing one another in a Latrobe Valley courtroom. Aaron Patterson is in the dock and Ian Wilkinson is in the witness box, and for the first time, Ian explains exactly what happened at that lunch.
Each person had an individual serve. It was very much like a pasty if you imagine a pasty being put on a plate, pastry incaste, and when we cut into it there was steak and mushrooms.
I'm Brook Greebert Craig, and this is the mushroom cook. Hi, Laura, we're back for another episode.
We certainly are.
What the listeners just heard was a voice actor. It's what Ian Wilkinson, the only guest to survive that deadly lunch on July twenty nine, set in court today.
And can I just say that voice actor sounded remarkably like Ian where you heard his voice in court today and they are very similar.
Yeah, they are.
So I think we need to just take a step back here and remind our listeners why we're here reporting on this trial. This case centers around a lunch, and of the last few episodes, we actually haven't spoken too much about the lunch. Last week, Erin's estranged husband, Simon, gave evidence, but he wasn't in attendance at this lunch. The four people that were there were Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, Gail's sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather's husband, who is Ian So.
Ian's the pastor of the karen Borough Baptist Church. He's been in that role for twenty six years. We heard in court today that he met Heather in nineteen seventy six and they married in nineteen seventy nine. So, Laura, this was the first time that Ian has publicly spoken about the details of the lunch.
That's correct, and as you can imagine, he had a lot to say. The three other guests that were sitting around that table with him, they're no longer with us, So his evidence is really important. And just to remind our listeners, Erin claims what happened at the lunch was a tragedy and a terrible accident. She has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against her.
So before we get into the nitty gritty of the lunch, let's chat about what Ian said about his relationship with Aaron.
He was asked this at the start of today. He told the jury that they were friendly, they were amicable, keeping in mind that for more than a decade Aaron was married to his nephew Simon. But he said their relationship didn't have much depth. They were more like acquaintances and didn't really see too much of each other besides the occasional time Erin would come to church or at family gatherings like Christmas.
Ian also said that Heather's relationship with Aaron was quite similar to his, but he did say that Heather would have seen Aaron Moore and would have talked to her more.
And I mentioned church before, and that is actually the place that Ian said. Aaron invited both himself and his wife to that lunch on July twenty.
Nine, and this was about one or two weeks before the lunch.
That's correct. And Ian recalled Heather being fairly excited that they had received this invitation and that they would be very happy to attend. He said it seemed like their relationship with Erin was going to improve. Before Ian was asked any questions about the lunch, he was quizzed about the days beforehand what he and his wife were doing. He said they went for a walk on the morning of the lunch, they bought a newspaper and they had a coffee with some of their neighbors at a local cafe.
So at about twelve thirty PM, all four of the guests arrived at Aaron's Lee and Gatha home. And just for the listeners who are aware how far kar and Barra and Lean Gatha are, it's about a fifteen minute journey by car.
And there was even a little joke in court that the Pattisons were late to pick up the Wilkinson so they didn't get to Erin's quite in time.
They were meant to get there at twelve, but they got there at twelve thirty. That's correct, So Laura in court, Ian said that Heather mentioned something to them in the car that stood out to her. When they arrived at Aaron's.
She told the others that she noticed Simon's car wasn't at Aaron's home, and it was at that moment Don and Gale piped up and said that their son would not be attending.
Then Aaron met the guests outside and they all then went into Aaron's house and Aaron gave them a tour of the house because Ian and Heather had never been there before.
And we heard that the tour kind of focused on one area of the house. Do you want to talk a bit more about that?
This was quite heartwarming. In court today, Ian told the jury that Heather was particularly interested in pantry because the couple had just built one in their own home.
Ian said that Heather was kind of obsessed with seeing the way other people decked out their pantries and the way they probably organized everything. So Heather started making her way to the pantry, but Ian recalled that Aaron appeared
reluctant to show them the pantry. But Ian said that he thought maybe Erin was reluctant because the pantry might have been a bit of a mess and he didn't want to cause her any more embarrassment, So him and Don just stayed in the living area, continuing to chat, and left the women to the pantry.
After that, all five of them moved out of the house and went on to the Verandah where they started talking about Aaron's garden.
Gail and Heather were really into gardening, so they were engaging in a conversation about that, and then soon after it was time for lunch.
Yes, that's right, So Aaron was in the kitchen plating up their food at the island bench. Heather and Gail were on the other side of the island bench and they he actually offered to help Aaron plate up the food, but that offer was rejected by Aaron, so essentially all of the food was plated up by Aaron herself.
As our listeners may remember from last week, the jury were told that the guests ate their meals off four large gray plates, while Aaron ate her meal off a smaller orange tan plate, and this was Ian's evidence today. Aaron's defense barrister Colin Mandy tried to suggest to Ian that those four gray plates were not the same, but Ian doubled down. He said to mister Mandy that he was sure that those plates were the same, and those were the plates the guests ate off.
So on the plates were individual serves of beef, wellington, mashed potato, and green beans. Ian said in court today that he ate his entire meal. His wife Heather did too, gayl ate her vegetables and ate half of her beef Wellington and then don ate his entire meal and half of Gail's beef Wellington.
Ian was also asked if he remembered how much Aaron ate and he said he could not recall.
So after the lunch, Aaron announced something to the guests.
Hang on, we're forgetting about dessert. Oh, you're right about that. We heard today that Gail brought a cake to the lunch and Heather bought a fruit platter. But we heard that they were served on the table, but not much was eden by the guests. They were way too full from lunch.
So back to what I was about to say. Sorry, So after the lunch, Ian said that Aaron had an announcement.
He did, He said, Erin revealed to the guests that she had cancer. This is his evidence, but it's not his voice.
She said she was very concerned because she believed it was very serious, life threatening. She was anxious about telling the kids. She was asking our advice about that. He went on to say, in that moment, I thought this is the reason we have been invited to the lunch.
Ian told the jury the group then prayed.
I prayed, asking God's blessing on Erin, that she would get the treatment that she needed, that the kids would be okay, that Sh'd have wisdom in how she told the kids So Laura.
Ian was then questioned about Aaron's cancer. Further, wasn't he he was?
Mister Mandy suggested to Ian that what was actually said at that kitchen table by Erin was that she had a suspected diagnosis of cancer. Just to cast our listener's mind back to last week, the defense have conceded that Erin does not have cancer. That in itself is not in dispute. But Ian was questioned about his recollections from that lunch because it is the defense case that Erin only said at this lunch that she had a suspected diagnosis.
Ian was even taken back to a police statement he made in September twenty twenty three after he had recovered in hospital. He told police at that point in time that his recollection was that Aaron said at the lunch she had a suspected diagnosis. So mister Mandy really wanted to hone in on this today to refresh Ian's memory and push him as to whether or not that's what
he actually remembered, but Ian held firm. He said that he recalled her saying that she had cancer because she went on to talk about a scan of some sort that she had which showed a tumor.
Ian then told the jury that he, Gail, Don and Heather all left Aaron's house about two forty five pm that day. He then went on to tell the jury that he and Heather were feeling okay and went to bed around ten thirty eleven PM that night.
And this is where some of the evidence in court today became more graphic in nature. Ian was asked about the symptoms he and Heather had throughout the night, which included vomiting and diarrhea, and by dawn they realized the Pattersons had also fallen.
Ill Ian told the jury that he and Heather started to feel pretty washed out. That morning, Simon went over to Ian in Heather's house and the trio ended up at Lean Gather Hospital. Ian told the jury that this is where doctors first suspected that he and his wife had food poisoning. Ian and Heather stayed at lean Gatha Hospital for one night, but then Ian said they were
abruptly woken up by nurses the next morning. After there were some communications between Dannyng Hospital and lean Gatha Hospital. So these communications involved conversations around suspected mushroom poisoning. The couple were then told they needed urgent care.
By this time we were nearing the end of Ian's evidence because soon after they realized they had fallen ill with mushroom poisoning. Ian was sedated and taken to the Austin Hospital to be transferred into the ICU.
After weeks in hospital, Ian recovered and he was eventually discharged on September twenty one, twenty twenty three. So that was all of Ian's evidence. But Laura, what was he like on the stand?
Yes, So I was sitting in court today when Ian walked in. He was wearing a black vest with a brown shirt, and when he approached the witness box you could see him look towards Aaron sitting in the dock. It was only a glance, and then his evidence got underway soon after that. During his testimony today, there were actually some light moments where he laughed, he smiled, and
on one occasion his chair almost broke. He kind of got a bit of a shock, and just as Christopher Beale, the judge running this trial, joked that that was something that they did with all of their witnesses, which got a really good laugh from everyone in the courtroom. But I think it was fair to say that Ian brought some warmth into the courtroom. He was being asked questions about a very difficult period in his life at the center of this trial would have been one of the
last meals he ever shared with his wife. But he didn't become emotional in court, like I said, choosing at times to laugh and smile when giving evidence. So this was the first time and the last time Ian will give evidence in this trial. Once he was excused by the judge, he walked back into the body of the courtroom and took a seat next to one of the Patterson family members and they put their arm around Ian.
So after Ian was done with his evidence, we also heard from more witnesses we did.
We heard from three medical witnesses, so we had a paramedic Cindy Hyde, a nurse Lisa Shannon, and a doctor Beth Morgan. These three all treated Don and Gale the day after the lunch. Doctor Morgan gave evidence around Don and Gale arriving to hospital, and Don being a lot sicker than Heather, he was given a drug to protect his liver. And I'm definitely not going to try and pronounce this one. But after that, she told the court that an antidote to death cap mushroom poisoning was not
something he was given. She told the jury that at the time, the doctors at the hospital did not have enough evidence that anyone else was unwell or anyone else was experiencing the type of liver injury that would indicate death cap mushroom poisoning. She also mentioned that another doctor had contacted police after finding out that Erin had discharged
herself from hospital against medical advice. But we must keep in mind that over the coming weeks we're expected to hear from a lot more medical witnesses who will shed more light on the hospitals and the way they treated these patients.
Okay, let's move on to the dehydrader now. So for the last four or five days, the dehydrata has made a cameo in our podcast because obviously it's made a cameo in court.
Yes, I think we've mentioned it almost every day.
Yes, so today we heard from a witness called Darren Fox, who was he Laura.
He owns a Better Home Living store in Lee and Gatha. This is a store that sells small appliances, bedding, furniture and electrical devices.
So he told the court that one of his employees actually sold something to Aaron Patterson in twenty twenty three.
Yes, and it's that dehydrator. And we heard a little bit more about this appliance. It's a Sunbeam Food Lab dehydrator and it's about two hundred and twenty nine dollars.
The Drew was actually shown a tax invoice with Aaron Patterson's details on it. The tax invoice was dated April twenty eight, twenty twenty three, and the dehydrator was purchased at twelve seventeen PM.
And rest assured this is not the last you'll be hearing about the dehydrator.
Thanks Laura. Remember you can catch up on all of our live blogs, coverage and more at the mushroomcook dot com dot au