‘Gordon Ramsay, eat your heart out': Extra kilo of mushrooms at issue
It's not every day, we might safely assume, that a murder trial begins with the jury being shown a page from a cookbook that begins with the words 'Gordon Ramsay, eat your heart out'.
But there it was. Day 30 of the trial of accused killer mushroom cook Erin Patterson had barely got under way when there appeared on the courtroom's big video screen a beef Wellington recipe from a RecipeTin Eats cookbook by Nagi Maehashi.
Beneath the cheeky tilt at the salty-tongued British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, whose beef Wellington is a signature dish at his famed Savoy Grill in London, was the following printed warning by Maehashi to would-be cooks.
'Even professional chefs tell me that Beef Wellington gives them nightmares and they've always struggled with it.'
It is impossible, of course, to know what, if anything, the jury made of this.
What we do know from earlier evidence is that this was the recipe that Patterson told police she had used to guide her preparation of a luncheon that led to the deaths of three of her guests, and the near-mortal illness of a fourth.
Patterson has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Her defence is that the deaths and the illness were a terrible accident.
The beef Wellington recipe shown to the jurors advised that a duxelles involving mushrooms should be used.
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West Australian
11 hours ago
- West Australian
Mushroom cook's triple denial as trial grilling ends
Disagree. Disagree. Disagree. Those were Erin Patterson's responses to the prosecution's final three questions in her murder trial. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC rounded out her marathon cross-examination on Thursday with three suggestions: that Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023, deliberately included them in the beef Wellington she served her former in-laws and did so intending to kill them. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murders of her estranged husband Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, 66, and the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian. She denies deliberately poisoning her lunch guests on July 29, 2023 when she served them meals that included death cap mushrooms. Patterson was accused of more lies on her eighth and final day in the witness box at the Supreme Court in Morwell in regional Victoria. The 50-year-old was asked about her evidence that she dehydrated dried mushrooms she had bought from an Asian grocer before adding them to the beef Wellingtons. She agreed she never said this to anyone at the time and didn't mention putting the fungi into the dehydrator when she earlier admitted adding them to the lunch. "I suggest this is another lie you made up on the spot," Dr Rogers said, accusing Patterson of hedging her bets to try to make it sound like there were multiple possible sources for the death cap mushrooms. "Incorrect," the accused killer responded. The prosecutor also suggested Patterson lied about taking diarrhoea treatment following the lunch after the 50-year-old earlier claimed one reason she went to hospital was because she thought they would have something stronger. Patterson agreed she did not tell medical staff at the hospital she had taken the medication, maintaining no one asked. "If you were looking for something stronger, you would've told medical staff you had already taken Imodium and it didn't work," Dr Rogers said. "I don't agree," Patterson responded. She was also questioned about her evidence that she had to stop by the side of a road and go to the toilet in the bushes while driving her son to a flying lesson, something the boy denied during his testimony. "I suggest he did not recall you stopping by the bushes on the side of the road because it did not happen ... I suggest this is another lie you told the jury about how you managed the trip to Tyabb," Dr Rogers said. "Disagree," Patterson said. The mother-of-two said she had served her children reheated beef Wellington with the mushroom and pastry scraped off while she had a bowl of cereal the night after the deadly lunch. But Dr Rogers referred to her children's evidence, in which they suggested their mother had the same meal of leftovers the night after the fatal lunch. One of Patterson's children said she "ate the same as us", but Patterson told the court they were incorrect and denied eating the leftover food. She also denied that she "deliberately concealed" one of her phones, referred to at the trial as phone A, from police when they searched her house. Patterson said she switched from phone A to another, referred to as phone B, because the former was "not cutting it anymore". But the prosecution pointed to records that showed regular use from a SIM card in phone A until days after the mushroom lunch. Patterson said she conducted a factory reset of phone B because she wanted to use it and that was the phone she gave police. "I suggest to you that there was nothing wrong with phone A and this is another lie," Dr Rogers said. "Disagree," Patterson responded. Under defence barrister Colin Mandy SC's re-examination, Patterson became emotional as she talked about her daughter's ballet lessons and son's flying lesson. With all evidence in the trial concluded, Justice Christopher Beale told jurors about discussions they could expect before dismissing them for the day.
Perth Now
11 hours ago
- Perth Now
Mushroom cook's triple denial as trial grilling ends
Disagree. Disagree. Disagree. Those were Erin Patterson's responses to the prosecution's final three questions in her murder trial. Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC rounded out her marathon cross-examination on Thursday with three suggestions: that Patterson deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023, deliberately included them in the beef Wellington she served her former in-laws and did so intending to kill them. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to the murders of her estranged husband Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, his aunt Heather Wilkinson, 66, and the attempted murder of Heather's husband Ian. She denies deliberately poisoning her lunch guests on July 29, 2023 when she served them meals that included death cap mushrooms. Patterson was accused of more lies on her eighth and final day in the witness box at the Supreme Court in Morwell in regional Victoria. The 50-year-old was asked about her evidence that she dehydrated dried mushrooms she had bought from an Asian grocer before adding them to the beef Wellingtons. She agreed she never said this to anyone at the time and didn't mention putting the fungi into the dehydrator when she earlier admitted adding them to the lunch. "I suggest this is another lie you made up on the spot," Dr Rogers said, accusing Patterson of hedging her bets to try to make it sound like there were multiple possible sources for the death cap mushrooms. "Incorrect," the accused killer responded. The prosecutor also suggested Patterson lied about taking diarrhoea treatment following the lunch after the 50-year-old earlier claimed one reason she went to hospital was because she thought they would have something stronger. Patterson agreed she did not tell medical staff at the hospital she had taken the medication, maintaining no one asked. "If you were looking for something stronger, you would've told medical staff you had already taken Imodium and it didn't work," Dr Rogers said. "I don't agree," Patterson responded. She was also questioned about her evidence that she had to stop by the side of a road and go to the toilet in the bushes while driving her son to a flying lesson, something the boy denied during his testimony. "I suggest he did not recall you stopping by the bushes on the side of the road because it did not happen ... I suggest this is another lie you told the jury about how you managed the trip to Tyabb," Dr Rogers said. "Disagree," Patterson said. The mother-of-two said she had served her children reheated beef Wellington with the mushroom and pastry scraped off while she had a bowl of cereal the night after the deadly lunch. But Dr Rogers referred to her children's evidence, in which they suggested their mother had the same meal of leftovers the night after the fatal lunch. One of Patterson's children said she "ate the same as us", but Patterson told the court they were incorrect and denied eating the leftover food. She also denied that she "deliberately concealed" one of her phones, referred to at the trial as phone A, from police when they searched her house. Patterson said she switched from phone A to another, referred to as phone B, because the former was "not cutting it anymore". But the prosecution pointed to records that showed regular use from a SIM card in phone A until days after the mushroom lunch. Patterson said she conducted a factory reset of phone B because she wanted to use it and that was the phone she gave police. "I suggest to you that there was nothing wrong with phone A and this is another lie," Dr Rogers said. "Disagree," Patterson responded. Under defence barrister Colin Mandy SC's re-examination, Patterson became emotional as she talked about her daughter's ballet lessons and son's flying lesson. With all evidence in the trial concluded, Justice Christopher Beale told jurors about discussions they could expect before dismissing them for the day.
7NEWS
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- 7NEWS
Hundreds riot over multiple nights on streets of Ballymena in Northern Ireland: ‘Racist thuggery'
Violence has erupted in different parts of Northern Ireland for a third successive night, with masked youths starting a fire in a leisure centre. However, unrest in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena was notably smaller in scale. Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Ballymena — a town of 30,000 people located 45km from Belfast — on Tuesday night in what police condemned as 'racist thuggery'. The violence flared on Monday after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court earlier that day, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town. The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of properties on Monday and Tuesday in Ballymena, which has a relatively large migrant population, as racially motivated hate crimes. Two Filipino families told Reuters they fled their home in Ballymena on Tuesday night after fearing for their safety when their car was set on fire outside the house. A few dozen masked youths threw some rocks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police after officers in riot gear and armoured vans blocked roads in the town on Wednesday evening. Police deployed water cannon against the crowd for the second successive night, but the clashes were nothing like the previous night that left 17 officers injured and led to five arrests. Much of the crowd had left the streets before midnight. A small number of riot police were also in the town of Larne 30km west, where masked youths smashed the windows of a leisure centre before starting fires in the lobby, BBC footage showed. Swimming classes were taking place when bricks were thrown through the windows and staff had to barricade themselves in before running out the back door, local Alliance Party MP Danny Donnelly told the BBC. Northern Ireland's Communities Minister Gordon Lyons had earlier posted on Facebook that a number of people had been temporarily moved to the leisure centre following the disturbances in Ballymena, before then being moved out of Larne. The comments drew sharp criticism from other political parties for identifying a location used to shelter families seeking refuge from anti-immigrant violence. Lyons condemned the attacks on the centre. Police said youths also set fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, a flashpoint for sectarian violence that sporadically flares up in the British-run region 27 years after a peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed. Debris was also set alight at a barricade in Coleraine, the Belfast Telegraph reported. The British and Irish governments as well as local politicians have condemned the violence.
