Kiota. 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, we'll 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.
Pauline Hannah's voice echoed throughout the courtroom on day nine of the trial of her husband, Philip Polkinghorn, who was accused of murdering her. It came in the form of a covert recording of a family dinner, providing Hannah a chance to explain their relationship in her own words to the jury who'll decide whether she died of foul play or whether she took her own life, and later a
bombshell is dropped by the defense. Day nine began with the court watching the rest of Polkinghorn's police interview with the detective Ilona Walton, who sat in the witness stand while it played. Polkinghorn murmurs whether he should have listened more. Maybe sho didn't feel supported she always wanted a dog, he said, a bulldog, and wanted to call it Winston, after Winston Churchill. The police officer and subject quip about the number of books on the former English PM around
the house. Polkinghorn mentions the interview is like something he does as a doctor, taking a history. He said, should value the history more.
But I don't need to listen too much of the history because it's usually unreliable.
He goes on to a story about when he was in London being asked to accompany his boss on a date and how he could swear it happened when he was a fellow, but it was actually five years later.
So this is quite important.
Oh yes, yes, I understand, because you don't have the You don't have the thing that we have, which is the examination. So we have the examination, see which so we get the parts.
If you like, by two things.
Two are texts asking you how when did I become sore? To looking at the eye and seeing what's wrong with it? But you don't have the ability to do that, unfortunately.
He spoke more about the orange rope and how it was attached to the balustrade. He equipped at one point, I must be the worst person you've ever interviewed. Crown Solicitor Alisia McClintock questioned Ilona Walton about that interview. She asked about the events beforehand. Polkinghorn wanted to know whether there was a note found there wasn't, and whether there was any relevance of the COVID vaccine that had the
day before. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield, in his cross examination, asked about the suspicions that arose from the tension test done on the rope and whether Walton was instructed to keep him at the station. He spoke of a call Polkinghorn had received from his friend, a barrister. In one of the breaks of the interview, it appears as being told his wife's death was being reported in the media, that he was a suspect and forensics were at his
Upland Road home. Walton reiterated multiple times he was not at the station as a suspect, but a witness.
I know been critical or somewhat critical of you for not telling doctor Polpenhorn of the police view that it might be suspicious and cautioning him, and I know you don't accept that, correct, Burdie, thank you for what appears to be a polite way that you dealt with him that afternoon.
So thank you.
Pauline Hannah's younger brother, Bruce Hannah, was called to the stand. Their younger sister, Tracy, has lived in London for about thirty years. They had a rural upbringing, growing up on a small property with an orchard just outside Hastings. They were close before their mother died in the beginning of twenty twenty one. Should suffer dementia, Pauline would visit her family in the Hawks Bay at least monthly. They messaged
and called. She'd call him on hands free on the motorway on her way home from work.
Hell recent to her death, were you last talking or engaging with Paula?
I spoke to her on the Thursday night. Thursday night before Good Friday, she phoned. She was driving home and telling me about We had a good conversation. She was in high spirits and she was opening a vaccine clinic on the following Wednesday in Counties Manekau somewhere south for Marty and Pacifica. And then after she opened, cutting the
ribbon on the Wednesday. I think on the Thursday of the Friday she was going down to centralow Targo who contract finished, and then she was going down to Central Targo.
On for a ten day holiday with a group of friends.
How did she seem about that work? The work part of that, Oh, good, she said, it was great. They got through it. It was quite a tall mountain climate. They got over the top of it.
They've got organized and yeah, she was really proud of herself and the team.
She was in high spirits.
He said he met Polkinghorn in the mid nineties. They got on okay, despite not having too much in common. They'd go fishing at the couple's rings be each batch. Bruce says his sister seemed happier when she wasn't around her husband. In the twelve to eighteen months before her death. He liked it when she would visit without Polkinghorn in
tow he'd get more time with his sister. She told her brother of her relationship and how her husband had a woman in Sydney and was seeing other sex workers in Auckland.
Yeah, he had a woman in Sydney and he had other women and he went he visited prostitutes in Auckland. Yeah, I remember saying to her, you know it, you know is he does he use a condom? Is he safe to have sex with you after this? You know? And she assured me that it was all okay. So I think they used to be group six. Yeah, and Philip used to get her involved. I don't know she was very happy about it, but I think that for the sake of the relationship, she was trying to sort of go.
Along with it.
Bruce said, Pauline would tell him her husband was an angry man on.
The roof with her words. They were her words. How did she use those words? And what context? Oh, she'd say, he.
I can't talk to her at the moment because he's on the roof and he's completely in a complete wild and he's mad at something I don't know what, and so I just got to like walk away and just leave.
Them, okay.
Any other explanations for that mood of mister Paulkinhorn that caused these difficulties? No, what did you say to Pauline through the periods?
I mean, what was your sort of position and discussion?
I would say, well, you know, does he does he get violent? Do you you you know, what do you do when when he's like this? I know, go to the gym or I'll leave the house him. Yeah, so she seemed to have a bit of a solution for it.
He was driving when Polkinghorn called him about eight thirty am on Easter Monday, April fifth, twenty twenty one, and he.
Told me.
He told me, he said, Ah, I've got some terrible news.
It's Pauline. She's dead. She's hanged herself.
Pauline. Hannah's voice slurred as she spoke of her husband. We all make mistakes, she said. She's at her brother's house, Bruce, talking with him, his wife Shelley, and daughter Rose at their Hawks Bay farmhouse in November twenty nineteen. Rose had recorded part of that conversation, about twenty minutes of it, and it was played to the court in its entirety during Bruce's testimony.
But I know he loves me.
I know he's just such a he wants to have sex with everybody, videos of and I've got videos. And he's really hurt me to the extent that sometimes I thought, well, why am I living with him? But I love him and he loves me, and actually it's just his malfunction.
Hannah said she was considering leaving her husband, but she loves him.
He's a very busy person.
This last year, I would gladly say goodbye, and I wish I never had it in my life, like it's been ugly bugly.
Yeah, you found me and you want to walk away. Well the two billion dollars cats from Philip. You were going to walk away, that's what you said to me. That.
Yeah, that's the best of it. Actually beyondest. I've considered just chucking myself over that.
I don't want to do that.
No, no, I don't know that. But actually I love my husband. But he is somebody who is very angry with the will when the world doesn't go his way. We've just lost Willis and millions of dollars because of the shit that's happening at Auckland.
Rose said she's worried about her aunt living with such an angry man.
He does love me, and he's Lord without me, And I know you.
Don't understand it. I know that if he takes his stress on you, they see that logic. But I guess it every day at the moment. But he doesn't love you, then he does love me. He does love me. He does because he becomes so remorsefully in any cries, Yeah, because he knows that he's got a good thing with you. Yeah.
Pauline said her husband had been revolting a rendegrade, hurtful towards her, and besides, she's only sixty three. She doesn't want to be putting up with this behavior until she's ninety three. She said, she's not a doormat because you're not.
Doing what ever the fuck you want. You know, you're not screwing some thirty year old underwear model.
And she got quite a lot of men fancy me quite fro because as fucking hot, and I'm bloody good at what I do, and I've got a heap.
Of men were actually quite like you. Had like twenty compliments today and you look gorgeous.
She told her family about Polkinghorn screwing prostitute. Well, he's in Australia.
Does he have like a regular woman.
No, he screws prostitutes Australia. So that's the thing that gives me confidence that it's nothing regular going it's about And in fact, does he use he used condoms.
I don't want to catch something. Here's the real kind of one pointing to get sick. But here's the real oil.
I used to join the prostitutes and be part of the fucking thing.
And so I have been with so many odd men and.
So yeah, I'm telling you, you don't want to hear it, Rosie, you don't want to. But I did that because I wanted to make sure that he didn't go off the rails, that I was part of it, because then you were there. But now I can't do it anymore. Three years ago I decided I can't do this. I had to drink two bottles of wine before I go with another man. And it's just revolting and I hate it.
It all makes.
Sense now, but how can you say he loves you when he wants, he does participate, he likes.
He likes, he likes. He just needs to have sex.
That's why every day he was in Sydney the last two weekends and he would have contact, he would have contacted L.
She said she's met one of them, who she refers to as L plenty of times.
But L's a lovely woman heaps of time. Until three years.
Ago it happened I would go to the parties of five and six and seven. Yeah loves me more than she loves Yeah, and she and she wants me to provide. You know, she'll pay you twenty k to come over and do a party on Sunday either.
And while you're involved, that's fine because you're a philip and you're partaking in a party. And that's what.
Disappoints me that that that he said to me doesn't want to do it anymore.
So that's good. So I pulled down and your goes and so that's that's the thing.
So when you're together, it's one thing, But when he's by himself, that's different.
Yeah, but it's not love Rosie Poet six.
If he had a girlfriend in Auckland, Hannah said, that would be a different story. She goes on to say she's not abused, although it admits she's living through some emotional bullying. She hopes he'll change.
It's not not fair, it's not fear. And I'm not gonna sat myself up for someone you love, and I'm not gonna stuff myself up for them. I have got the most amazing role you have. I've got two ndred million dollars.
Sometimes I don't either.
I'm not gonna destro no, because if you give that up, then you lose your power. I'm not letting him destroy the power in but an he hates profect that I've got power.
Hannah said. Polkinghorn is a complex character. If she needs to leave him, she will. Though her niece asks when the benchmark is or a deadline, she said probably mid next year. She mentions troubles at auckland Ie. He's been roped in to confront his behavior. She said she doesn't go into too much detail than that. She pleads with her family, don't hate Philip. He's a good man. He's going through a lot of stress, she said. She assured
her worried niece, I'm safe. Darling. Hannah said she's emotionally battered, not physically. They say she's different when he's around, and that's a red flag to them. The conversation turns to Christmas plans and then fades. In his cross examination, Ron Mansfield asked Bruce Hannah about his sister's chill pills, as she calls them. Did Bruce ever ask Pauline why she was on the medication? He said he didn't.
Are we going to hear evidence in this trial of Pauline disclosing an attempt to kill herself in nineteen ninety two, shortly after your father's death. Were you aware of that?
I wasn't aware of that.
Mansfield referred to medical records and asked Bruce hannah Weather he had known about any of it. He didn't. He started with two thousand and one, when she was prescribed to antidepressant medication. Her most recent prescription was February twenty twenty one. He describes prescriptions for appetite suppressants and her referrals to a psychiatrist.
Twenty thirteen, she was diagnosed with alcohol dependent syndrome. Were you aware of that?
It was not.
She was reportedly drinking a bottle of wine, burned night over the previous ten years, and had frequent amnesia memory loss while affected by alcohol.
I did not.
That same year, Mansfield said she was prescribed a drug which was to discourage alcohol consumption, and diazepam, which is designed to treat anxiety and alcohol withdrawal. In March twenty nineteen, he said her medical records note Missus Polkinghorn's alcohol consumption reported to be above sensible limits.
Twenty three December twenty nineteen, A note Missus Polkinghorn reported to be distressed and experiencing suicidal thoughts but had no plans. She was referred to the crisis team. Were aware of that?
No?
Accorded in the notes that Missus Polginghorn had long standing depression and alcohol abuse, regular prescription of florixotine and phantomene for the past fifteen years. It's a telephone consultation in which Missus Bognhorn was upset and crying, reported her mother was in hospital and her husband had left her, had suicidal thoughts but no plans, and that's when she's referred to the crisis team.
Are you aware of that?
Oh?
Was not. Mansfield produced an email Hannah had sent to family members in May twenty twenty. In it, she wrote it was her first full day off in eight weeks. The Crowns Brian Dicky re examined Bruce, who reaffirmed he wasn't aware of any suicide attempt or any hospitalization. He thought she would have reached out twim given their close relationship. He didn't think she drank that much alcohol. She held down a very responsible job, he said. The trial continues tomorrow.
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 Paddy Fox. Additional reporting from The Herald, Craig Capatan and George Block, and for more coverage of the Polkinghorn trail, head to Enzidhrald dot co dot nz