May 12, 2025 • 11 mins
The Mushroom Cook team outlines the job of reporting on the trial.
The Mushroom Cook team is Brooke Grebert-Craig, Laura Placella, Anthony Dowsley, Jordy Atkinson and Jonty Burton. Our intern is Jasmine Geddes.
Go to themushroomcook.com.au for news, features, previous episodes and more.
Subscribers get our bonus Sunday shows with crime reporter Anthony Dowsley. CrimeX subscribers: find this episode in your podcast feed
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
We're at the Herald Sign offices on the banks of
the Yarraw River. We've got the day off today because
Aaron Patterson's trial is not sitting, but we've assembled the
entire team for a special bonus episode. I'm Brooke Greebert Craig,
I'm Laura Placella, and I'm Anthony Dowsley and this is
the Mushroom Call. Welcome guys.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks. We're here back at the Herald and Weekly Times
building in the city.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's almost strange to be recording this episode from the
actual podcast studio in our office and not where we've
been doing it ad and.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
More well, and the fact that I'm sitting down with
both of you guys, I'm sure our listeners will really
enjoy what's to come.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Let's get underway.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Bring the heat.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
So let's talk about why is there a day off
in court today.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'll tackle this one. Late last week, the judge told
the jury that they wouldn't actually be required to come
in on Monday and listen to any evidence. He explained
to them that there were some things happening in the
background and the lawyers were going to take the day
off to get up to speed. A few hours after
he told them that the jury actually came back with
(01:11):
a note for the judge and they had a few questions.
One of them was are we going to have every
Monday off? They wanted to know if moving forward, they
would never need to come to court on Monday. But
the judge did have to burst their bubble and explain
to them that this was a one off and moving forward,
the trial would be sitting on Mondays. For people that
don't know, jurors get paid for jury service, so every
(01:32):
day that they come in they get given an amount.
And they also wanted to ask the judge are we
going to get paid if we don't come in on
Monday And he said he'd have to get back to
them on that one.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
So that's essentially why we're at our office in the
city today because the jury has a day off.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Are we getting paid today?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I feel sorry for the people at the coffee shop
because they've been doing a roaring trade down and more
well in the main street. It's called the Daily Cafe.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
We should give them a shout out.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's the Daily and the first day of the trial
I remember walking there and it's because it's a country town.
You had all of the defense lawyers sitting at one
big table.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Near the PowerPoint because they needed to charge their life
charging up.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You had the police sitting at a central table in
the middle of the place, and then you had all
the journals sort of milling around wondering can we talk
to these people if we just watch or what are
we going to do? No one approached anyone at the
end of the day. Everyone stayed at their tables. And
all that went through my mind is I didn't know
where the prosecutors were, so I think they went around
to a place called JD's around the corner. So I
(02:36):
think that's been their little cubby hole since. So it's
an interesting kind of field because everyone's sort of in
court all day and you're healing all this evidence, and
then you're sort of at lunch and you know, you're
seeing all these familiar faces but just not and say hello.
But that's about it.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And does this happen at trials in Melbourne?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Laura, Well, because trials in Melbourne are held at the
Supreme Court in the middle of the CBD, there are
so many places for people to go grab a bite,
and some of the lawyers also go back to their
chambers or their officers to spend the lunch break, so
everyone's very dispersed, where like DAWs said in More Well,
everyone's kind of flocking to the same venue. But early
(03:15):
on in the trial, the jurors are actually told if
they are out at lunch and they see anyone involved
in the trial, whether it's a lawyer or a journalist
or just someone they recognize from the courtroom, they shouldn't interact.
And if that person doesn't interact with them, they really
shouldn't be offended. Everyone's just making sure they're doing their job.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And would you say that the media pack has thinned
out now that we're going into week three.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I've returned to Melbourne and we can watch it from
down here on the video screens at the Supreme Court,
so I've done that, and there were other journals there
that were in More Well like Guy was for the
first week. First week is always jam packed. You've got
openings and you've got witnesses that you've been waiting to
hear from, and then you know, as it goes on,
(04:01):
the newspapers and the TVs tend to not go with
it at the start of their bulletin or at the
front page every single day and we all sort of
come back towards the end of the trial in most cases.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
And how many journalists have been sitting at the Supreme
Court in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
While I've been there, there was four or five six
of us at least, and you can hear everything and
see everything, but you can't look around the court. So
there's a similar overflow room. We call them overflow rooms,
so you're not in the court which has got a ballot.
There's six of us allowed officially in, but there's more
that do go in. So we're all sort of in
the overflow rooms watching video screens and it leaves us
(04:41):
a bit more free to talk to each other or
if we don't understand a piece of evidence, we can
turn to a colleague and say did you hear that?
Would you write down? Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So the overflow room in Morewell has about fifteen journalists
I say, sometimes a bit less. It really depends on
the day, but it's very similar to the room in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Right. Yeah, it's a big room in Melbourne and it's
just a big screen at one end and seats, I
mean there's thirty forty seats in there. Don't. There's not
that many. Gene, I was watching it from a Supreme
Court in Melbourne. But you know, we're got someone sort
of cheperining us as a court staff that's there and
that we just watch and we write our notes just
(05:18):
as we would when.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
We're in more well and Laura, you've been sitting in
the actual courtroom most days, how's that been.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
There's been a few days where I've had one of
those official seats in the courtroom. They're marked with a
white piece of paper that says reserved for the media.
But like we were saying, over the course of the
second week, they were less journalists and also less interest
from the public. So in the first week most seats
in that courtroom were taken. But as the evidence starts
to continue and the interest maybe wanes, more seats become available.
(05:47):
So it's been quite easy to walk in and grab
your seat to watch the proceedings.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And have many members of the public been sitting in court.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yes, there's definitely been a few. Some will just come
for one day. You've got to wonder if it's maybe
just a day off for them, and they've thought to themselves, up,
I'll just mosey on down to the La Trobe Valley
Law courts and check out the trial. But for others,
you're seeing the same sorts of faces, whether they're people
from Aaron's life or people who knew the guests.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So now Ian Wilkinson has been sitting in court most days.
This is after he gave his evidence last week. Can
you talk to us more about the dynamics between him
and his family?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, And I'll just flag that as soon as a
witness is done giving evidence in a trial, they're welcome
to stay in the courtroom and watch the proceedings, but
until they've given evidence, they're actually not allowed to watch
any of the trial because the court doesn't want their
evidence to be tainted by what they've heard from previous witnesses.
As you mentioned, Ian has been sitting in court observing
(06:46):
the proceedings, and after giving evidence he's sat down in
the courtroom and he's had relatives surrounding him.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And there's a point because we've been talking about rubbing
shoals with people down at the coffee shop. Well, in court,
because there's media, there's family members, and there's members of
the public. I was sitting next to someone who I
don't even know, but I'm positive that they were a
family member, and you almost feel a sense of guilt
(07:14):
that you are typing away someone's evidence as they give it.
And as you're tapping on your keys, I could feel
the woman next to me begin to weep and I
could see that, and you just feel like sort of
maybe going and getting another seat, but you don't want
to interrupt the court, so you just tap away as
(07:34):
quiet as.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You can, and the might there might not be another
seat either.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, that's the other thing as well. So you do
feel yourself you know that you're in the middle of
something that is real, and that is extremely sad because
we are obviously talking about the deaths of three people
and another person who almost died, who gave evidence, and
you know it's not just something that you're only reporting on.
(07:57):
You are becoming involved in something more important than anything
going on in your own life.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yes, and I think it's that timely a reminder that
at the end of the day, three people have died
and relatives are really still grieving their deaths.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And part of this trial is dealing with a family that,
as you just mentioned, Brooklyn, we are dealing with a
family that's grieving a family where members of that family
have to give evidence. We've heard evidence from Simon Patterson,
Eron's husband. We've heard evidence from Ian Wilkinson, Simon's uncle.
We've heard evidence from the children, Simon and Eron's children.
(08:35):
So we are dealing with family ties and we are
getting a picture in some ways of their relationship.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
As Brooke and I explored on one of the last
podcast episodes when Aeron's children were giving evidence, and this
was pre recorded evidence from a month after the lunch,
So she's seeing younger versions of her children on the screen,
and it was clear that from the she was becoming
quite emotional. She reached for a tissue at one stage,
(09:04):
and the mood in the courtroom definitely shifted, especially in
the case of the evidence of her daughter. She was
nine at the time, and you see this small little
girl sitting on a blue armchair on the screen and
she's being asked questions about essentially the circumstances surrounding the
death of her grandparents, and she has to explain to
(09:27):
the interviewer that she doesn't know too much about the
lunch because she wasn't there, but he still has to
ask her questions about what she remembers from before and
what she remembers afterwards to help flesh out the case.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So there is a theme of family ties running through
this trial, and the family ties also extended to her
son giving evidence. Being older, he's given a more considered
answers in some ways as to the relationship between his parents.
This is also we've heard evidence about the slow breakup
(10:05):
of their parents. We've heard about money and money issues.
We've also heard about the family ties with other members
of the family, the brothers, the sisters, the uncle, the auntie.
So we are in the middle of in many ways,
a family kind of trial where they're all giving evidence
(10:28):
or those that are called. There are people giving evidence
about other family members. That's got to be hard.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
And while we don't know yet who will be giving
evidence tomorrow, it's very clear though that the trial is
about to shift into the more expert witnesses. At the
start of the trial, the prosecution in their openings flagged
that there would be evidence led from experts that specialize
in phones, in mushrooms, in data, and we're starting to
(10:58):
head towards that part of the trial.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And in many ways, this is what you could almost
call the dog days of a trial where it becomes
you're dealing with scientific evidence, you're dealing with expert evidence
about how things work, and that's when you get into
really technical stuff. It's hard to listen to you sometimes
because you know you're dealing with scientific or other expert evidence.
(11:22):
So even from a storytelling point of view, it gets
a bit harder as well.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And we will try our hardest though to explain it
all on our future episodes, but you might have to
bear with us a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Thanks too much, guys for joining me at the Herald
Sun's office in the city.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
See you back and more. Well.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
As a rose between two thorns, no, actually, the thorn
between two rows is the thorn between two roses. Thanks
for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Thanks now, so to say. Up to date with all
our latest coverage, go to the mushroomcook dot com dot
au
We're at the Herald Sign offices on the banks of
the Yarraw River. We've got the day off today because
Aaron Patterson's trial is not sitting, but we've assembled the
entire team for a special bonus episode. I'm Brooke Greebert Craig,
I'm Laura Placella, and I'm Anthony Dowsley and this is
the Mushroom Call. Welcome guys.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Thanks. We're here back at the Herald and Weekly Times
building in the city.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's almost strange to be recording this episode from the
actual podcast studio in our office and not where we've
been doing it ad and.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
More well, and the fact that I'm sitting down with
both of you guys, I'm sure our listeners will really
enjoy what's to come.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Let's get underway.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Bring the heat.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
So let's talk about why is there a day off
in court today.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'll tackle this one. Late last week, the judge told
the jury that they wouldn't actually be required to come
in on Monday and listen to any evidence. He explained
to them that there were some things happening in the
background and the lawyers were going to take the day
off to get up to speed. A few hours after
he told them that the jury actually came back with
(01:11):
a note for the judge and they had a few questions.
One of them was are we going to have every
Monday off? They wanted to know if moving forward, they
would never need to come to court on Monday. But
the judge did have to burst their bubble and explain
to them that this was a one off and moving forward,
the trial would be sitting on Mondays. For people that
don't know, jurors get paid for jury service, so every
(01:32):
day that they come in they get given an amount.
And they also wanted to ask the judge are we
going to get paid if we don't come in on
Monday And he said he'd have to get back to
them on that one.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
So that's essentially why we're at our office in the
city today because the jury has a day off.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Are we getting paid today?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I feel sorry for the people at the coffee shop
because they've been doing a roaring trade down and more
well in the main street. It's called the Daily Cafe.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
We should give them a shout out.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's the Daily and the first day of the trial
I remember walking there and it's because it's a country town.
You had all of the defense lawyers sitting at one
big table.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Near the PowerPoint because they needed to charge their life
charging up.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You had the police sitting at a central table in
the middle of the place, and then you had all
the journals sort of milling around wondering can we talk
to these people if we just watch or what are
we going to do? No one approached anyone at the
end of the day. Everyone stayed at their tables. And
all that went through my mind is I didn't know
where the prosecutors were, so I think they went around
to a place called JD's around the corner. So I
(02:36):
think that's been their little cubby hole since. So it's
an interesting kind of field because everyone's sort of in
court all day and you're healing all this evidence, and
then you're sort of at lunch and you know, you're
seeing all these familiar faces but just not and say hello.
But that's about it.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
And does this happen at trials in Melbourne?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Laura, Well, because trials in Melbourne are held at the
Supreme Court in the middle of the CBD, there are
so many places for people to go grab a bite,
and some of the lawyers also go back to their
chambers or their officers to spend the lunch break, so
everyone's very dispersed, where like DAWs said in More Well,
everyone's kind of flocking to the same venue. But early
(03:15):
on in the trial, the jurors are actually told if
they are out at lunch and they see anyone involved
in the trial, whether it's a lawyer or a journalist
or just someone they recognize from the courtroom, they shouldn't interact.
And if that person doesn't interact with them, they really
shouldn't be offended. Everyone's just making sure they're doing their job.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And would you say that the media pack has thinned
out now that we're going into week three.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I've returned to Melbourne and we can watch it from
down here on the video screens at the Supreme Court,
so I've done that, and there were other journals there
that were in More Well like Guy was for the
first week. First week is always jam packed. You've got
openings and you've got witnesses that you've been waiting to
hear from, and then you know, as it goes on,
(04:01):
the newspapers and the TVs tend to not go with
it at the start of their bulletin or at the
front page every single day and we all sort of
come back towards the end of the trial in most cases.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
And how many journalists have been sitting at the Supreme
Court in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
While I've been there, there was four or five six
of us at least, and you can hear everything and
see everything, but you can't look around the court. So
there's a similar overflow room. We call them overflow rooms,
so you're not in the court which has got a ballot.
There's six of us allowed officially in, but there's more
that do go in. So we're all sort of in
the overflow rooms watching video screens and it leaves us
(04:41):
a bit more free to talk to each other or
if we don't understand a piece of evidence, we can
turn to a colleague and say did you hear that?
Would you write down? Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So the overflow room in Morewell has about fifteen journalists
I say, sometimes a bit less. It really depends on
the day, but it's very similar to the room in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Right. Yeah, it's a big room in Melbourne and it's
just a big screen at one end and seats, I
mean there's thirty forty seats in there. Don't. There's not
that many. Gene, I was watching it from a Supreme
Court in Melbourne. But you know, we're got someone sort
of cheperining us as a court staff that's there and
that we just watch and we write our notes just
(05:18):
as we would when.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
We're in more well and Laura, you've been sitting in
the actual courtroom most days, how's that been.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
There's been a few days where I've had one of
those official seats in the courtroom. They're marked with a
white piece of paper that says reserved for the media.
But like we were saying, over the course of the
second week, they were less journalists and also less interest
from the public. So in the first week most seats
in that courtroom were taken. But as the evidence starts
to continue and the interest maybe wanes, more seats become available.
(05:47):
So it's been quite easy to walk in and grab
your seat to watch the proceedings.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And have many members of the public been sitting in court.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yes, there's definitely been a few. Some will just come
for one day. You've got to wonder if it's maybe
just a day off for them, and they've thought to themselves, up,
I'll just mosey on down to the La Trobe Valley
Law courts and check out the trial. But for others,
you're seeing the same sorts of faces, whether they're people
from Aaron's life or people who knew the guests.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So now Ian Wilkinson has been sitting in court most days.
This is after he gave his evidence last week. Can
you talk to us more about the dynamics between him
and his family?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, And I'll just flag that as soon as a
witness is done giving evidence in a trial, they're welcome
to stay in the courtroom and watch the proceedings, but
until they've given evidence, they're actually not allowed to watch
any of the trial because the court doesn't want their
evidence to be tainted by what they've heard from previous witnesses.
As you mentioned, Ian has been sitting in court observing
(06:46):
the proceedings, and after giving evidence he's sat down in
the courtroom and he's had relatives surrounding him.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And there's a point because we've been talking about rubbing
shoals with people down at the coffee shop. Well, in court,
because there's media, there's family members, and there's members of
the public. I was sitting next to someone who I
don't even know, but I'm positive that they were a
family member, and you almost feel a sense of guilt
(07:14):
that you are typing away someone's evidence as they give it.
And as you're tapping on your keys, I could feel
the woman next to me begin to weep and I
could see that, and you just feel like sort of
maybe going and getting another seat, but you don't want
to interrupt the court, so you just tap away as
(07:34):
quiet as.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You can, and the might there might not be another
seat either.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, that's the other thing as well. So you do
feel yourself you know that you're in the middle of
something that is real, and that is extremely sad because
we are obviously talking about the deaths of three people
and another person who almost died, who gave evidence, and
you know it's not just something that you're only reporting on.
(07:57):
You are becoming involved in something more important than anything
going on in your own life.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yes, and I think it's that timely a reminder that
at the end of the day, three people have died
and relatives are really still grieving their deaths.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
And part of this trial is dealing with a family that,
as you just mentioned, Brooklyn, we are dealing with a
family that's grieving a family where members of that family
have to give evidence. We've heard evidence from Simon Patterson,
Eron's husband. We've heard evidence from Ian Wilkinson, Simon's uncle.
We've heard evidence from the children, Simon and Eron's children.
(08:35):
So we are dealing with family ties and we are
getting a picture in some ways of their relationship.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
As Brooke and I explored on one of the last
podcast episodes when Aeron's children were giving evidence, and this
was pre recorded evidence from a month after the lunch,
So she's seeing younger versions of her children on the screen,
and it was clear that from the she was becoming
quite emotional. She reached for a tissue at one stage,
(09:04):
and the mood in the courtroom definitely shifted, especially in
the case of the evidence of her daughter. She was
nine at the time, and you see this small little
girl sitting on a blue armchair on the screen and
she's being asked questions about essentially the circumstances surrounding the
death of her grandparents, and she has to explain to
(09:27):
the interviewer that she doesn't know too much about the
lunch because she wasn't there, but he still has to
ask her questions about what she remembers from before and
what she remembers afterwards to help flesh out the case.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
So there is a theme of family ties running through
this trial, and the family ties also extended to her
son giving evidence. Being older, he's given a more considered
answers in some ways as to the relationship between his parents.
This is also we've heard evidence about the slow breakup
(10:05):
of their parents. We've heard about money and money issues.
We've also heard about the family ties with other members
of the family, the brothers, the sisters, the uncle, the auntie.
So we are in the middle of in many ways,
a family kind of trial where they're all giving evidence
(10:28):
or those that are called. There are people giving evidence
about other family members. That's got to be hard.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
And while we don't know yet who will be giving
evidence tomorrow, it's very clear though that the trial is
about to shift into the more expert witnesses. At the
start of the trial, the prosecution in their openings flagged
that there would be evidence led from experts that specialize
in phones, in mushrooms, in data, and we're starting to
(10:58):
head towards that part of the trial.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And in many ways, this is what you could almost
call the dog days of a trial where it becomes
you're dealing with scientific evidence, you're dealing with expert evidence
about how things work, and that's when you get into
really technical stuff. It's hard to listen to you sometimes
because you know you're dealing with scientific or other expert evidence.
(11:22):
So even from a storytelling point of view, it gets
a bit harder as well.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
And we will try our hardest though to explain it
all on our future episodes, but you might have to
bear with us a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Thanks too much, guys for joining me at the Herald
Sun's office in the city.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
See you back and more. Well.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
As a rose between two thorns, no, actually, the thorn
between two rows is the thorn between two roses. Thanks
for having me.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Thanks now, so to say. Up to date with all
our latest coverage, go to the mushroomcook dot com dot
au
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