Hilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and from the team behind the front page. The New Zealand Herald's daily news podcast, This Is Accused the polking Horn 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.
The trial of Philip Polkinghorn has in theory, hit the halfway mark, with Justice Graham Lang telling the jury it's broadly on schedule. Given we're about halfway, let's run through some of what we've heard over the last few weeks. Philip Polkinghorn is accused of strangling his wife, Pauline Hannah at the couple's Remuere home in April twenty twenty one, before allegedly staging the scene to make it look like sh'd taken her own life. His defense maintains she committed suicide.
We've heard from police officers, those who first attended the Upland road scene, and a Canadian rope expert who said the bright orange rope hanging from the upstairs balustrade was too loose. A beltmark on her neck seen on the Easter Monday morning, disappeared by the next day, suggesting it could have been applied after death or taken off up to two hours after the courts heard thirty seven point seven grams of meth was found dotted around the home.
A pipe was found at Polkinghorn's workplace. Auckland Eye and a work friend has detailed the day he came forward and disclosed his drug use. Friends and family of Hannah have testified she confided in them about the couple's relationship, Polkinghorn's infidelity, his alleged anger issues, and an incident where she claimed he wrapped his hands around her neck. Polkinghorn has already pleaded guilty to possession of meth, which was
made public on day one of the trial. We've heard from Pauline herself via a recording of a family dinner, where she divulges details of their sex life as sex worker in Sydney, threesomes and emotional abuse. He's out of control because he doesn't understand how to control himself. But he loves me more than anything in the world. I'm
his brick, he is mine. She said. The court listened to a rambling epic of a recorded police interview hours long, where Polkinghorn details how he found his wife on the morning of April fifth, twenty twenty one. We've heard of Hannah's medical history, an itemized list of prescriptions spanning decades, highlighting her battle with depression, a long relationship with weight loss drugs, reports of suicide ideation in twenty nineteen, and
an attempted suicide in the early nineteen nineties. Her record is peppered with mentions of alcohol use disorder and a couple of psychiatrist visits. The defense points to a powerful cocktail of medications and is indicated it'll offer evidence later in the trial that some of it, when combined or when taken with alcohol, can increase the risk of suicide.
Her work on the COVID nineteen response was stressful. She worked all the time, sending emails at all hours, they say, with her details of tea and toast, a scrape or was it a graze on the forehead? How power usage works, an orange nylon rope, a sheet in the dryer, a trip to the tip, a batch at rings beach, a crisscross patterned belt, plans for Christmas twenty nineteen, weekly visits to a sex worker on the North Shore, a COVID vaccination rollout, a retirement payout. And that is just the
first three weeks. Week four of the trial began on a Tuesday morning. As Philip Polkinghorn's lawyer, Ron Mansfield had an unrelated case before the Supreme Court on Monday, Polkinghorn and the jury had the day off. First to the stand on Day sixteen was former chief executive of auckland I, Deborah Boyd. She joined the clinic in twenty sixteen. She refused to be filmed or recorded, but you'll remember we can report what she said. She said she started noticing
a change in Polkinghorn's behavior from twenty eighteen. She noticed weight loss. Pauline had him on a diet. She said. She started receiving emails in the early hours of the morning and noticed he'd fall asleep in board meetings. His eyes were shut and he wasn't participating in the conversation. She recalled. This was happening at most of the six weekly meetings in twenty twenty, the year before Hannah's death, Prosecutor Pip McNabb asked about the meth pipe found at
Auckland I in October twenty twenty. You'll remember it was found on a Monday and CCTV footage was checked to see who was there over the weekend. Polkinghorn Boyd herself a cleaner, a finance manager. She said it was never established who left the pipe at the clinic. Drug testing was done at the clinic in July twenty twenty one, and the results found a consulting room tested positive for
meth in an air conditioning vent. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield asked Boyd if the laser room where the pipe was supposedly found was used the Thursday before. He referenced a report which states the room was last used for a teenage male patient on that day. Boyd said if the pipe was there on the Thursday, it would have been found on the Friday. The rooms are checked between each day.
Mansfield said that's an assumption. The room where the myth was later detected in the air conditioning was a consult room which could be used by anyone and wasn't specific to Polkinghorn. Boyd agreed, but Polkinghorn always worked out of a certain room, she said, but concedes there was no record of who used the consult room or when Mansfield and Boyd go through meeting agendas emails about when board
members has shown documents. This surprime example of the level of research required of lawyers in a trial like this. It shows the defense went as far as requesting the emails sent to board directors to calculate how far before board meetings they were sent out and thereby challenge Crown accusations about his behavior at the meetings. The defense team also has researched the temperature on a certain day several years ago to show, according to Mansfield, that it's no
surprise someone would fall asleep during a meeting. Two more Auglandire staff took to the stand next. Both declined to be filmed and recorded as well. Janet Wigmore, a registered nurse and the clinical services manager, has worked there for nineteen years. She's the one that found the meth pipe just inside the door of the RETINALD laser room during a routine check of the clinic before work started. Two people were with her. There was a glass pipe and
a lighter, she remembered. She told operations manager Tracy Molloy, who later testified as well about the discovery. She reiterates. Polkinghorn was one of several people to have visited the clinic that weekend before the paraphernalia was found. He went in during the day and then again about eight pm on Saturday, then back again on Sunday. CCTV captured him walking down the corridor with a man and woman at the weekend. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield asked whether the pair
were patients. She didn't know. Jeremy Hill was called to the stand. He's an operations coordinator at the Drug Detection Agency in Auckland. In twenty twenty one, he was a testing technician. They do workplace testing for drug analysis, including on site screening. We've already heard from Deborah Boyd that she arranged for meth testing at Auckland Ay in July twenty twenty one. Hill had to wait until the clinic
closed because they wanted to do a confidential test. He took swabs of several rooms, taking away fourteen swabs in total, just.
Looking for different areas in different rooms, so depending always in the room and how well it was used. I taggered the same.
Sort of areas, what sort of areas are they usually?
So usually it's some high touch point areas, so things like light switches, keyboards, phones that are used day and day out with touching their hands. Or high airflow areas, so things like ear vents, air filters, HVAC systems, so.
Arranged just depending on what just arrange here.
Crown Prosecutor Pep McNab walked Hill through all of the swabs taken, where they were swabbed, what object, what room. The samples were sent to a Hamilton lab for testing. Of all of the samples, there was one particular area with a level of concerning contamination. That was the heat pump grill in consult Room four, a consult room which could be used by anyone but one which Polkinghorn used often. Rod Mansfield questioned readings Hill did after another company cleaned
the practice. He came back in September when several swabs came back with a positive result, including a printer tray in consult Room four. It had a reading of one hundred, much higher than the other readings in July or September. Pep McNab clarified a couple of things.
Just briefly, mister Hill, you said that in September twenty twenty one when you did the second lot of testing, the printer had the result of one hundred micrograms. Was that printer tested the first time in July twenty twenty one.
Not for coverage of other news events in New Zealand, listen to the front page The Herald's daily news podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Margaret Skelton is a forensic accountant for the New Zealand Police. She took to the stand as an expert witness, having been tasked with analyzing Hannah and Polkinghorn's financials. She started her testimony at the
end of day sixteen, before returning on day seventeen. Skelton was given an z and ASB bank statements as well as some other information about different trust accounts and funds.
Yeah, it was a bit of a two way street really. You'd find out, you know, where the investigation was going in a general sense. But when I analyzed bank statements, no matter you know what it's relating to, you tend to look for certain time transactions. So in this case, I identified transactions to accounts of payees that were frequent or common in the bank accounts.
She would pass on names to police of people who came up regularly in the records, she looked at their individual accounts, joint accounts, credit and debit cards. A joint account was where Hannah's salary was paid.
Were you able to distill who appeared to be the daily user of that account or the regular user of.
That account primarily her? The spending that I saw and it were of the everyday type of expenses parking, coffees, lunch, groceries, things like that.
Could you tell between users of the account once or not?
Well, you can when it comes to internet banking transfers and bank cards because because if you are for in case of a debit card, it'll have a number, and on ASB bank statements those card numbers are displayed so you can tell from the card number.
An ASB account is Brian Dicky's first focus, an account solely operated by Polkinghorn. As well as monthly pension payments and fortnightly payments from National super there was a regular weekly payment of five hundred dollars to an account named a Laria Family Trust starting in February twenty nineteen. Suffice to say, Skelton's testimony was lengthy and involved a lot
of numbers different accounts, transfers and cash withdrawals. First off, details of Polkinghorn's bank transfers to a litany of payees or female became clear.
All right, and the next person, I think this, did you've got here as medicine Ashton?
Correct? So my investigation revealed that there was. There were transfers totaling one hundred and six, one hundred and thirty one dollars made to Missession and the last payment was on the fifth of January twenty twenty one.
So he gave one hundred and six thousand, one hundred and thirty dollars to Australian sex worker Madison Ashton, with whom prosecutors say he was living a double life between February twenty nineteen and January twenty twenty one. Here are
some other transactions. Nearly thirty six thousand dollars from twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen on a woman named Lee, who was identified by Polkinghorn's barber earlier in the trial as a mutual acquaintance sex worker, just over seventy two thousand dollars between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one on a woman named Jody sixty one thousand, eight hundred dollars between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty one to a Northcote Point resident named Ilaria, who was identified by her neighbors to
jurors as a sex worker who would receive frequent visits from the surgeon. We heard that earlier in the trialer's work, over thirteen thousand dollars between twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen was spent on a woman named Kimberly, and just over seven thousand dollars in twenty nineteen on a woman named Indra. The total amount spent on women alone was two hundred and ninety six thousand, six hundred and forty five dollars.
Now we get onto cash with drawers in the year from February twenty eighteen, they're about one hundred and twenty with drawals from Australian ATMs, totally around one hundred and fifteen thousand New Zealand dollars.
So most as a result of my investigation, appeared to be made when Miss Polkinghorn was not in Australia. I was aware at that point that Possession lived in Australia at the time, and in to eighty twenty nineteen from this anzet account, mister Polkinghorn started making international transfers to medicine Ashtionin and those cashwift drawels ceased and those payments that the payments that were made were referenced in the one hundred and six thousand that I mentioned earlier.
Skelton explained they can obtain people's travel records from immigration, so she was able to compare the withdrawals to when he was in New Zealand. Skelton took the court through cash with drawals, So.
For twenty sixteen, just run through.
Those first plas.
Yes twenty and sixteen, cashwift draws from those three accounts totaled thirty thousand, three hundred dollars twenty and seventeen. They totaled twenty two thousand, three hundred and fifty dollars twenty and eighteen. The total was thirty three thousand and fifty
dollars twenty and nineteen. Forty nine thousand, three hundred twenty twenty was eighty five thousand, one hundred and In twenty and twenty one, which is just to the end of March twenty twenty one, the total was twenty one thousand dollars.
I went through what happened to the money from the sale of the Pappatoy toy property that it earlier been referenced in the trial. You'll remember it sold for about a million dollars. Skilton followed that money. First off, two payments of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars went to
an investment and managed fund that Polkinghorn held. There was also seventy two thousand dollars in transfers to his Australian account, transfers to Kelly and Ashton, one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars paid to Ben Polkinghorn, his son, and twenty six thousand dollars spent on a Sanyong yute.
It took I think it was almost a year. Certainly, by March twenty twenty one the account balance was back at five thousand dollars. So it took a period of time for the balance of the funds to be dispersed on a variety of different smaller spending items.
But as you've said before, Adoptor Polkinhorn's the sole authority on this particular account.
Quick, all right.
I won't go through every detail of every account because there are a lot you can read full testimony at enzherld dot co dot nz if you're interested, but I will know activity connected to an account called the Hannah
Polkinghorn Trust. Funds would be transferred to it, say like two thousand dollars a fortnight from Hannah's salary, and when the account balance reached anywhere from eight to fifteen thousand dollars, it'd be transferred to a joint ASB account, then dispersed among accounts controlled by polking Horn, so.
That the Internet banking transfer is made from the Hannah Polkinghorn Trust total three hundred and nine thousand, eight hundred. They were authorized or conducted by mister Polkinghorn, and did.
All of that go to accounts ultimately over which he was the soul.
Of foreign exactly, So if you lose all the noise in between, it was going from joint accounts into accounts that he controlled by himself.
That stopped happening at about twenty twenty, and by March twenty twenty one, the balance in that account was about forty four thousand dollars. That's something Skelton noted as being interesting. She went on to explain how she knew who made what transfers when we have an account number. We also have a customer number. These customer numbers are unique to people.
From twenty nineteen to March twenty twenty one, there was just over one hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars transferred from an an Z account to Polkinghorn's Australian bank account. Skelton also referenced two accounts in Hannah's name. She opened them in December twenty twenty. She said it's possible Hannah opened to this account without Polkinghorn's knowledge, as is not
an authority on it. Skelton went on to establish the couple's worth looking at their two properties, the Remuera one and the one at rings Beach, their investment account, personal accounts, and trust accounts. They were worth nearly ten point five million dollars. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield asked about when a couple chooses to separate assets, No matter whose name they're in, would be divided fifty to fifty, right, So it.
Doesn't really matter, does it? What name a particular essay it is held in?
From that perspective, no, doesn't.
Matter what name a bank account was held in. No, wouldn't matter whether someone was a signatory or wasn't a signatory.
When it comes to the attribution of money in the bank account.
No.
He asked Skelton about the couple's wages on polling Hannah's salary. Her net's salary was about one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars after tax deductions and key we Saver contributions. Mansfield said it would equate to a salary of around two hundred and eight two one hundred and twelve thousand dollars if.
She so chose, say, for example, if she wanted to separate or wanted to prepare to separate somebody, then she could redirect that salary into another account, couldn't she Yes, because that would be something that she would be able to control immediately.
Yes, Well, you just tell your employer.
So even if they separated, Mansfield said, she was on a comfortable salary that's before the division of assets, where they'd both get about five point two five million dollars each. Skilton agreed. Mansfield takes her through various transactions from Hannah's personal account, the one she set up in December twenty twenty. Trillie's cooper Rodney Wayne New World Farow fresh A pharmacy, fruit and bed shop.
No payments to private investigators are there. No no payments to matrimonial lawyers or solicitors.
No.
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 Seles and sound engineer Patti Fox. Additional reporting from The Heralds Craig Captan and George Block, and for more coverage of the Polkinghorn Trial head to enzedhrold dot co dot nz