Kyota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and from the team behind the front page the New Zealand Herald's daily news podcast, This is Accused. The Polkinghorn Trial. Over the next six weeks, in conjunction with our usual daily episodes, will be bringing you regular coverage as one of the most high profile trials of the year makes its way through the High Court at Auckland. A warning, this podcast contains disturbing content.
Day three of the trial of Philip Polkinghorn centered around a bright orange rope hanging from a balustrade and a detailed walkthrough of the scene examination of the couple's remuerra home. The former auckland Ie surgeon maintains his wife took her own life on the morning of April fifth, twenty twenty one, and Easter Monday, but the Crown claims he staged the scene to look like a suicide. First off, it's important to understand the layout of that entrance way and the
stairs leading up to the second floor. Pauline Hanna's body was found at the bottom of four steps on the floor of the entrance way. If you were making your way up to the second floor from the front door, you would walk those steps, turn left on a small landing, turn left again, then continue upstairs to the second floor. Your left hand would touch the solid wooden hand rail on your way up, and as you reach the top, the wood connects to a balustrade, a railing made up
of eleven black rods. Now you're at the balustrade. Imagine you're standing there, leaning on the black metal. You'd be looking down and you'd see the four initial steps and the landing to your left would be the stairs. Had just walked up with that solid wooden hand rail when officers arrived. Photos show you can see a rope hanging overhead a few steps in from the front door that just entered. Hannah's body in front of them. The orange rope was tied around three of those black iron rods
that made up the balustrade. That rope could be seen hanging above the entrance way where Hannah's body was found. Crown Prosecutor Alicia McClintock first called to the stand Detective Elona Walton, who was at the scene that morning. Walton described walking through the house into the garage where she saw two cars, one with its boot open. The court heard that one of those cars a Mercedes had a personalized number plate alluding to Polkinghorn's successful career as an
eye surgeonr E t Ina Retina. She described the tension check down on the rope hanging from the balustrade. It took twenty to thirty seconds, with her colleague, Sergeant Christian Ioga, pulling on it gently using a finger and a thumb.
Whereabouts on that loose end of the rope is he pulling?
Do you know? I'm somewhere in the middle. Maybe I can't specify exactly whereabouts?
And when he first pulls on that rope just explained for us what what you saw happened to the rope, And.
It just kept going and going and going and going.
What do you mean going and going?
When extending out from where he was holding it, so it didn't just stop and he pulled on it in a jam. Oh sorry, he pulled it, and the rope just kept unraveling and coming undone.
In later photos, instead of the orange rope dangling from above, it now touched the white tiled floor of the entrance way. Walton said it seemed unusual. It's not like a that
would normally be found when someone had hung himself. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield cross examined Walton, saying police had, after about an hour of being there, already concluded it was suspicious because of this test, But he said Polkinghorn had already admitted he had handled the rope upstairs in his initial statement at the scene, and then within.
That statement you would have noted that it read I did the following things, and because I was so flustered, I undid the belt and rope from around Paunan's neck and then went upstairs to undo the knock from the court. Can you see that.
He said the fact the rope was easily unraveled was because his client had gone upstairs to undo it.
But given the importance of this tension check, why didn't you go and speak to doctor Polkinghorn and ask him then and there around some details about when he went upstairs and how he handled the rope in order to see whether there might be a very logical explanation for how the loosely core rope on top of the stairs so easily once again just fell downstairs.
That was why I invited him back to the police station to discuss that.
But why couldn't you've asked him simply then before the scene is treated as suspicious.
Because if the scene's treated as suspicious, you want to reduce any further contamination.
And he asked why Walton didn't just speak to him at the home. There could have been a reasonable explanation. The detective's answers on how the rope test was conducted became less clear as Mansfield ramped up his questioning.
So, if the detective constable leaned over the wooden railing that we can see, which is a solid wooden railing, how was he able to grab hold of.
The rope that we see dangle down in photo nineteen.
Grabbed? I'm assuming the top part.
I just pause you there, Why are we assuming?
Well, he's grabbed the top part of the.
Rope, So what part did he grab.
He's grabbed the part of the rope that's dropping down. I can't tell you an exact which part of that rope he grabbed.
The knot of the rope sat in the middle of those three rods. It was tied around something that raised questions would it have slipped down the rods if weight had been applied to the rope. Sergeant Ioga tested this using a gloved finger.
I believe at the time that if this was death by hanging, that I believed that if there was any weight put on it from someone hanging from it, that that rope itself would be down the bottom of the balustrade before it had any tension. So I wanted to make sure to see how tight that rope was, to see if it would stay there when any pressure was
put on it. Yes, So with that still wearing gloves, just using my index finger just to the left of the knot, I put my finger on top to see if it would slide up and down, and again with a minimum tension, that rope that's tied around the three balustrades slipped down a little bit, and then I went back underneath it to pull it up, and it slid back up as well.
McLintock asked for his conclusion. He said, at that point, I didn't believe it would sustain any weight. Police then decided to leave the rope where it was. The entire balustrade was then removed from the landing with the rope so the knot and rope could be kept intact for further examination later.
He said.
By late morning, Walton and another officer took Polkinghorn to the police station to give a formal statement. On their way, he said the orange rope was used the day before by Hannah on her trip to the tip. He hadn't eaten that morning, he told officers. The last meal he had eaten was the one his wife had made him the night before.
What did he say to you about that?
I think that was basically that he'd been doing most of the cooking at that time while she'd been busy.
Did he talk to you about what his wife.
Had cooked them the night before? Pork strips and veggies and potatoes that she'd forgotten to serve, That's what he said. Yeah.
Did he talk to you about either his appetitle who's at that point in type?
Yes, he said his wife had a big appetite and it was the largest mail he had in a long time.
They arrived at the police station at about twelve thirty pm. Who was happy to engage in a video interview that began at one eleven pm. The interview took about three hours and will later be played in its entirety to the court. Police scoured every one of the three hundred and seventy square meters of the Upland Road home, four bedrooms,
four bathrooms, the library, kitchen, study, laundry. Sergeant Christian Ioga assumed the role of officer in charge of the scene until the end of the scene examination on April thirteenth, twenty twenty one, eight days after Hannah's body was found. After the main entrance way where Hannah's body was found, they first turned their attention to the laundry and the bedroom upstairs where she'd slept the night before. A blue ottoman was found on its side. The white bed spread
was disheveled. There was no top sheet, a cup, a water bottle, and a mobile phone charging on a side table. On another end, two stuffed animals sat. Two pillows were on the bed. Others were strewn around the room. At the foot of the bed, there was a brown smudge. It was later tested and indicated there was a high probability it was blood, Ioga said. In the ensuite, liquid from the unflushed toilet was taken. Meth traces would later
be identified. There would later be no evidence of Hannah using meth, none in her urine or hair samples taken after her death. Ioga detailed the scene examination of the home. He noted a pink container with black riding in a drawer in an en suite, a container with a red lid in the master bedroom, a brown black box under the bed with a butane lighter. That is it.
A box beside it?
Yes, that is a box beside it. And then upon opening the box, as you can see in image ninety seven, it revealed a used glass pipe which is commonly used to smoke meth and fetamine.
Thirty seven point seven grams of meth would be found in total dotted around the home. Ioga also mentioned items had found in the washing machine.
So the item that was in the dryer was a large white colored sheet Demani branded it was a little bit damp and this had been seized by Fiona mathieson the ESR Scientists on day.
Two ed was there a range of items in the washing machine?
Yes?
There was wheat or not wat?
Did that include a variety of clothing?
Clothing and tee tails.
Clothing?
Did that appear to be female clothing?
Female clothing?
The trail continues to You can listen to episodes of Accused the Polkinghorn Trial through the Front Page podcast feed or find it on iHeartRadio. Or wherever you get your podcasts. This series is presented and produced by me Chelsea Daniels, with producer Ethan Siles and sound engineer Patti Fox And. For more coverage of the Polkinghorn trial, head to enzidherld dot co dot nz