Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on Justice Christopher Beale delivering instructions to jury for Erin Patterson trial

The jury is set to begin its deliberations in Erin Patterson's trial over the deaths of three relatives and the attempted murder of a fourth.

Patterson pleaded not guilty to deliberately poisoning Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson with death cap mushrooms at a lunch at her Leongatha home in 2023.

After eight weeks of evidence and closing submissions from the prosecution and defence, Justice Christopher Beale has delivered clear final instructions to the jury.

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says Justice Beale went through a long list of evidence for the jury to take into account.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murray Old's Australia correspondents with us. Now he mus very
good afternoon, Heather. Okay, so please tell me mus that
we are getting to the point where the jury is
going to go out. Yes, yes, yes. This is a
case of the accused alleged triple murderer, Aaron Patterson, and
the allegation, of course that she denies that she deliberately

(00:21):
killed three of her in laws and other relatives and
one survived. So after an eight week trial, there was
a lot for the judge, mister Justice Biale to go
through in instructing the jury. I've struggled trying to sum
it up for you, to be honest, there's lots to
get through. Look. The key point, it seems to me
is a non lawyer. I never did any legal units

(00:45):
at university at all. But he's basically said to the jury,
you must be sure about the evidence that you're weighing
up right, how credible were witnesses. You must use what
you believe to be true and disregard the rest of it.
He's spoken about the evidence, for example, of Aaron Patterson's
children different to it than mother's and you know you

(01:06):
put the accused on the stand. Was that a good movie?
He said it was. Her decision was not required to
give evidence in her own behalf. If the jury agrees
with her and supports the idea that her evidence was true,
you must acquit. If the jury believes that the prosecution
has failed to make the case to the standard required

(01:28):
and that is beyond reasonable doubt, the jury must also equit.
And then he's gone through a long list of I mean,
a real shopping list. If you like heather of evidence.
I mean, clearly you need a very big brain to
be a Supreme Court judge. And he has certainly shamed
me this afternoon. I've just got a headache just trying
to follow it. But imagine being in that jury box

(01:50):
after all this time, all this time, and I must
be thinking, bloody, how will you shut up and let
us go and start delivery. Wasn't it last week that
you I'm sure it was like last Tuesday, if not
the thursday before that you and I was say, oh,
it's going to wrap up by the end of this week,
and here we are, We're still We're still waiting for us.
So I mean, yeah, anyway, well, hopefully it's worth it

(02:12):
so much to take in I mean with the plates
different colors. Was her plate a different color to the
deadly plates? I mean, there's so much for the jury.
I really feel like you could whip through that summary
quite fast. Don't you think are really getting their money's
worth you? Anyway, listen, tell me what's going on with
the flights because of the conflict. Okay, well, you got

(02:32):
Quantus and Virgin operating I think daily flights, certainly in
Quantus's case, I think Virgin as well, which is operating
in conjunction with Cutter Airways. So there were flights to
and from London and Sydney and various spots across Australia, Brisbane, Melbourne,
Perth as well. Now some flights, for example, this morning

(02:53):
the Perth to London flight for Quantus was diverted to
Singapore when Iran targeted that American air base and Cutter
the flight Perth to Paris was turned back by Quantus
back to Western Australia. But this puzzles me here and
my geography might not be too good. But Sydney to London,

(03:15):
London Sydney via Singapore will are operating normally, as are
flights from Perth to Rome and Rome to Perth and
Perth to London. So there's a couple of flights to
Doha from Sydney and Brisbane this afternoon heading up to
Doha on Cutter Airways the courtesy of Virgin and those
flights are going ahead as well last time I checked
in the newsroom, those flights are proceeding, but obviously delays

(03:39):
will be applied here because they want to make one
hundred and one percent sure of the airspace is clear.
Until that, of course, both airlines saying you're out of
your mind. I think we're going to risk airline passengers
and crew and of course they're very expensive aircraft. It's
good to talk to you always, as we'll talk to
you hopefully next time we talked to you that that
jury has gone out there. It's very old Australia Correspondent.

(04:02):
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