Doctor Chris Webster's instincts was spot on with.

The killer mushroom cook.

Doctor Chris Webster said.

Dost Chris Webster was This Webster treated Aaron Patterson after that fatal mushroom lunch.

Chris Webster has just clocked on for a twenty four hour shift.

He's become the man of the moment in the trial of Aaron Patterson.

Chris Webster, the doctor who was on call when the guest of the deadly lunch went to Lean and Gatha Hospital.

He said a lot on the stand, but he has said a lot more since.

I'm Brooke Greebert Craig and this is the mushroom Cook.

Hi, Laura.

Nice to have you back in Melbourne with me.

Yes, it's great to be back home.

It's crazy to think that for three months we were effectively living in more Well.

And it's actually been brought to my attention that we've maybe been saying it wrong this whole time.

I've heard that the locals call it more so less more well, more moral the more you know.

If only I had known that eleven.

Weeks ago, it would have been helpful.

So as a court reporter, how are you feeling after covering the trial.

Yeah, we actually haven't seen each other for a few days.

Obviously, we were together on Monday, and then after the verdict came down and we finished work that night, we both went our separate ways.

But it's been a big few days, hasn't it.

Yes, I think it's safe to say that we were both kind of on an adrenaline rush for a couple of days.

But now that's kind of calming down.

Yeah, it is.

I actually think the adrenaline only wore off for me yesterday.

There's been a lot of work we've all been doing after the verdict, a lot of stories we've been writing, and a lot of things that have come out since the day we found out that Erin was a murderer.

And at the center of one of those stories was the straight shooting doctor Webster.

And you actually spoke to him nearly a month ago, isn't that right, Brooke.

Yes, that's right.

So I did a phone interview with doctor Webster on a Saturday morning on June fourteen, So this was three weeks before we received a verdict, and obviously we couldn't publish the story at the time.

This was me really preparing for after we got a verdict, and you know, at this point in time, we didn't really know when the trial would actually wrap up.

I've never spoken to doctor Webster before, so I really didn't know how much he would say.

But as I discovered during the interview, he was really quite candid with the words that he used.

And we published in the Herald Sun the day after the verdict, so on the Tuesday, and from there, doctor Webster was really inundated with media requests from across the country.

I know he did TV interviews, he did print stories, he also did radio interviews, and to his credit, he did them all.

But I do believe that he was really the most candid with me.

And you were telling me earlier that you actually touched base with him today.

Yes I did, And just to break the fourth war with our listeners, Doctor Webster gave permission for us to use the audio grabs from that phone interview that I did with him three weeks ago, So in this podcast episode we will throw to those throughout.

The interview did go for more than one hour, so I will flag we can't include all of it, and as I mentioned before, this was a phone interview, so the audio may not be the best, but we've cleaned it up as best we can.

But there's also been a development, that's right.

Unfortunately, Doctor Webster was telling me that members of the public have actually reported him to OPERA, which is the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, and apparently they reported him for the language that he used during the interview that he did with me.

So clearly members of the public are not happy with that, And to be honest with you, I think it's quite unfair here.

We have a doctor who has been a witness in such a high profile murder trial and hasn't really had the opportunity to speak about his experience, and personally, I think just because he swears, it doesn't make him any less of a doctor who is fit to do his profession.

Yeah, I one hundred percent agree.

But as we do take our listeners through the interview you did with him, Brook, we will probably have to flag that our bleeper will be getting a workout.

Yes, that's right, So let's start from the top to take our listeners back to the timeline.

Doctor Webster first enters the frame when Heather and Ian arrive at Lee and Gatha Hospital the day after the lunch he then attended to Erin when she rocked up at the hospital the following day.

Here's what he said.

The thing about Aaron a person arriving, is that.

I was like people in the department at that time that Aaron arrived that was pretty frantically rushing around and getting the treatment, the best treatment that we had available to us organized.

For Ian and Heather.

And when you have got a lot of things that a lot of people need to be doing, the what you do is a doctor that oftenly becomes a sort of delegation kind of you're not necessarily you know, I could put a can your in, but the nurses are putting the can your in you, So you're kind of it's like a footy coach.

I suppose you're sort of keeping an eye on what everyone's doing and making sure it's all flowing in the right direction.

So my hands were not busy doing something.

And the doorbell, which is actually the doorbell more accurately sort of it's like a nurse call button, you know, when the patient's lying in the hospital bed and they press that button to call the notes.

So that's that's pretty similar to.

How the kids getting called a doorbell, and the description of the court trial.

But it's really a nurse call bell, so it'll continue ringing until someone goes and stops it.

And it's hard enough to concentrate with all the alarms and beefs and bells and whistles in urging care.

So I went to find out who was responsible for pressing the doorbell, and when the person, the woman that was sitting there, said the reason that she was there is i've got gastro.

The first thing I said after that was just to make sure it was like a reeflex, I suppose, what's your name?

And she said Aaron.

Purpison, and so I didn't recognize her.

I didn't.

I didn't know who the woman was.

And when she said the name Aaron Patterson, having just had a pretty shocking phone call from Dr Bart about deathcout mushrooms, to have her sitting there, I was like, oh, okay, but it gets you into the departments, which I mean I sort of bypassed some protocols.

Only a stable patient that's sitting in the waiting area comfortably breathing and clearly conscious and alert and not distressed.

Normally, a patient my dad might wait quite a while before being brought in to the carbon and they would be assessed by a trioch nurse first, but the I bypassed all that and just brought straight.

He went on to say, at the point that she said Aaron Patterson, I was like, okay, we've got the fifth member of the meal here.

We can we can now concentrate on giving it all the members of the luncheon the right treatment.

But that that sort was a fairly short lived.

When I said to her, uh, you know, concerned about deskot mushrooms, where did you get the mushrooms?

When she said, as opposed to well, I'd pick my own mushrooms.

I've always picked my own mushrooms.

If she had said that, it would have been a very different sort of mindset for me, because there would have been that sort of instant kind of assumption that it was all a tragic accident.

But she, like a said in court, and then she guess that single word answer.

And in words that will stick with me for a long time.

He went on to tell me, so.

Once once she says that answer, yeah, my thoughts were, holy shit.

You can do it.

He's crazy been to view poison the wall.

So as our listeners can hear Doctor Webster was quite candid and didn't really hold back at all.

He went on to say that that moment was a turning point for him.

Everything for me changed at that moment.

That's from that moment, Oh you're okay, So you're a sociopathic knut bad and you've done this, and every everything I do from this point is obviously going to be Well, everything I had done to that point and everything I was going to do, I knew from that moment that she said were worse that everything would be very closely scrutinized under the microscope in the aftermath, because from that moment, I knew, well, this is going to be a.

Trial, this is going to be charges, this is going to be.

This is going to be a serpus So, as we know from the trial, Aaron left hospital after only five minutes of being there.

Dr Webster then made that crucial call to Triple ero.

The jury heard that Dr Webster made that call so police could perform a welfare check on Erin, but it's pretty clear that by this stage he also had his suspicions.

Now Brook, our listeners actually heard one of our colleagues voice that call in one of our previous podcast episodes, but now we can finally play you the actual audio of that call after it was released by the Supreme Court.

This is doctor Chris Webster calling from Lee and Gatha Hospital and I have a concern regarding a patient that presented here earlier but has left the building and is potentially exposed to a fatal toxin from mushroom poisoning.

And I've tried several times to get hold of her on her mobile phone.

So before I get all that information, in what address do you need the police to attend, doctor Chris?

So, well, should I give the hospital address or the address.

Of the patient if you know where they are their address?

I have the address of the patient.

Their conversation continued.

What's her name?

So the last name is Patterson Pattsom.

First name Aaron EERI muse you have a dot of birth thirtys of September nineteen seventy four.

When did she present at hospital.

At eight five today?

Yeah, mushroom poisoning, you said, yeah.

So there were five people that ate a meal on Saturday and two of them are in intensive care at dand in On Hospital.

Two have just been transferred from lang at the hospital to dand in on hospital and Aaron presented this morning with symptoms of poisoning.

So this recording was one of dozens of exhibits released to the media on the day of the verdict.

It was actually almost overwhelming.

You and I were outside court working on our laptops, and then all of a sudden, I got this email and there was a link to again dozens of exhibits.

So our listeners would have remembered us describing the exhibits on the podcast, for example, the CCTV footage of Erin at the BP in Coldermeat and the photos of the leftovers of the beef Wellington.

So it's been really nice to finally be able to publish these exhibits for people to look and to listen themselves.

Yes, I think people being able to actually get the visual for themselves is really important in the storytelling of the case.

So, as we know, Aaron came back to the hospital after more than one hour and doctor Webster saw her again.

Here's what he said about that interaction.

So, knowing having perused her file in preparation through the triple ero call, knowing that she had children, I asked about the children and whether they had eaten any left over, so that that information was provided as a result of direct questioning.

It wasn't volunteered or offered up by Aaron.

And then of course how the kids have eaten poisonous as well?

So and that's why I put the it's into children that the children were medically desisted as well.

He then went on to say he.

Was talking to her about deathtat mushrooms and she wasn't freaking out about the safety of her children.

You know my thought looking at her eyes, you know you're I don't know what planet you're on.

It's not Earth.

So in other words, I thought she was disturbed.

And as you can hear, once again he is quite candid.

But basically I thought, oh shit, you did it and you're crazy, and.

Oh you know this is going to get used.

And if I remember correctly, Brooke, Dr Webster actually said that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be a witness in a high profile murder trial.

But he said it didn't come without regrets.

Is that right?

Yes?

So doctor Webster treated in and Heather and he told me that he wished that he probed heaven more when she was in hospital, here's what he said.

Heather said to me at one stage, I said, I'm not much of a birthday celebration, so I'm sort of fishing like a barrister.

I suppose not much of a birthday celebration.

And Heather just sort of her eyes went downcast, and she sort of shook her head a little bit and said, oh, it wasn't It wasn't a birthday celebration.

And she didn't elaborate.

And I will never forgive myself for not asking further questions because I realized that I had.

Hit upon something.

During our interview, doctor Webster said some incredibly kind words about the lunch guests, but in particular about Heather.

I think what's been lost a bit in the trial is just how humble and decent these people are that were the victors, and a lot of people in urgent here quite aggressive, hostile, even when you're trying to help them.

As the doctor so said, Heather to be.

Pushed into the back of an ambulance and just before the door closed for her to say to me, thank you, thank you, Doctor Webson for all your care.

Yeah.

That the look on her face, the sincerity of her gratitude and the door sort of closing on her a bit like the final scene and the Godfather.

Yeah, that'll haunt me, that will halt me forever.

Another part of the interview I remember finding interesting was that Dr Webster said Aaron greased him off when he gave evidence.

Yes, you know what, this didn't actually surprise me.

I think when you and I were both in the court observing Aaron, we could see that she most of the time had a really stern look on her face.

Here's what Doctor Webster said about that.

I was so nervous about giving my evidence, and I looked over and then and these sort of searing hot daggers shot out of her eyes and went straight into my brain.

But she didn't just briefly off.

She greased off my wife.

She a greased off the Mitchell who drove children and me to court that day.

So and we all were all sort of debriefed in the car ride.

On the way home.

Did you look at any stage she came in the stinky stink I could, So there was all a lot of anger and hostility in her look when she was incarcerated and.

Sitting in the.

Accused dock.

A triple word of trol so a different flavor, but the same level of severe sort of disturbance and normal sort of human behavior and personality.

As our listeners will know.

Ultimately, the prosecution did not provide a motive to the jury.

Since the verdicts, everyone has been drawing their own conclusions.

Yes, you and I have had many discussions, just like I have had with Dows, as we mentioned on yesterday's episode.

But Doctor Webster also drew his own conclusions as to why he thinks that Aaron murdered her lunch guests.

I think that the reason is he did something so extreme is because she wouldn't see any other way to have life the way she wanted it.

Without these people are being out of the picture.

He continued.

I think once she got onto.

The train track that led to the destination, that there was no ability for her to get offered, and a sort of someone coming up and just slipping across the face and saying you break out of it, or maybe having some electorc renvulsive through shey or something.

That she's obviously an intelligent, capable individual.

That and I would say that the planning and that strategizing and foraging and chopping things up and all of that probably gave her a sense of calm.

It probably acted a bit like a anti depressant for like a bit low value or something that you know, it's time she did something that brought her closer to this life that was free of these people.

That were so bad to her.

And with doctor Webster in the public eye this week, we just want to wish him well.

And doctor Webster, if you're listening, thank you so much for talking to me all those weeks.

Ago, well said Brook.

And with that we're off for today, but we'll be back tomorrow for another episode.

Stay tuned.