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 a series of 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. After nearly five weeks of witnesses, the Crown has closed
its case in the trial of Philip Polkinghorn. The former auckland Ie surgeon, is accused of murdering his wife, Pauline Hannah, who was found dead on April fifth, twenty twenty one. He maintains she took her own life. The Crown closed its case with more on Polkinghorn's arrest, police searches, and a last minute witness on cell phones. The rest of the trial is now in the hands of the defense, and for their first witness, they called up Pauline Hannah's
own sister. Day twenty two started with former detective John Cleveland Kennedy. He was with police in August twenty twenty two, but since retired. Philip Polkinghorn's arrest happened at seven point fifty five am on August sixteenth, twenty twenty two. It was by appointment at the police station in the presence of his lawyer. Detective John Cleveland Kennedy arrested Polkinghorn and charged him with the murder of his wife and possession of meth and a meth pipe. He cautioned Polkinghorn and
read his riots. Polkinghorn made no comment, Kennedy says. The Crown then called detectives. Being your Sergeant Chris Allen, he's one of the officers in charge of the investigation. He entered the court carrying a box. After clarifying the investigation name Operation Cayenne was generated by a computer, Crown Solicitor Alsia McClintock asked Sergeant Allen to go through a series of photographs from evidence. Copies of the photos were handed
to the jury. McClintock asks Allan if he's seen the CCTV footage from Auckland I already discussed as evidence during the trial. He confirmed he had seen the videos. The footage was filmed in October twenty twenty, the weekend before a meth pipe was found in the medical practice. The selection of clips played to the court shows Polkinghorn walking down a corridor to the laser room where the meth pipe was found. So to take a senior sergeant, whereabouts
do you take the figure? As it's a very long way away?
Let me seek for the jury hard to see and where do you see the figure? In this excerpt stwet Sorry, where does he move?
Yes?
Whereabouts? The movement is as you see a light wash at the top of the sphere at the corridor, and it's I suppose the figure object is emerging in and around that sort of area left to right or right to left.
McClintock moves her. Questioning to the price of math.
Yeah, there's arrange nationally between. It can range from a couple of one hundred dollars up to one thousand dollars program depending on a number of factors Auckland, because there is a lot more probably supply basic economics. It's a little bit cheaper. At that point in time, the intelligence was suggesting it was about three hundred and fifty dollars a gram. If you buy a number of grams, is
it potential to get it at a bit of price. Yeah, this again a little bit of a wholesale expect if you buy in bulk.
Allan has then questioned about travel documents police sourced from Customs regarding Polkinghorn. Customs records show he departed from Auckland on December twenty third, twenty nineteen, at eight am, traveling to Sydney. You'll remember from earlier on in the trial, Polkinghorn had gone missing around this time, not showing up to a family Christmas at their Rings Beach batch in the Corimandel, Hannah had to lie to friends and family
about his absence. According to the customs records, he returned from Sydney on December twenty seventh, twenty nineteen. Earlier in the trial, evidence from a letter from Polkinghorn to Hannah in late twenty nineteen claimed he was attending to enroll in a retreat in Auckland called Moving On and Up. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield started his cross examination of Allen
by showing a series of videos from CCTV footage. Rather than videos from the night like the ones the Crown played, these videos would show the same scene inside the clinic from the morning. The clips show people including cleaners and a patient with a support person arriving and leaving Auckland.
I do you see that?
Now on the end there appears to be one off the mow that go down the corridor off to one side and then joining the other as they come and walk out.
Did you see that they emerge from that lightwashed sort of area at the end, came to emerge from different sides.
Did you see that?
But I'm not sure if I.
Could tell that. Mansfield is challenging the Crown's argument that Polkinghorn left the pipe in his clinic after visiting with friends over the weekend. Mansfield's questions move on to the discovery of panic buttons in the polking Horn's Remuera home. They were found by Sharon Jenkins, a staff member from Auckland. I Allan says his memory was hazy whether he interviewed her.
Can you remember her evidence about that or not her evidence, but his statement to the police about that, if I refresh your memory. She confirmed that she had been and stayed at the address to look after the cats, the pits of and missus Polkinghorn. Can you remember that?
And by themous?
In a statement, Sharon Jenkins said she stayed at the polking Horn home and looked after their cats. Police had not discovered the panic buttons during their search of the home.
There we see a photograph of the upstairs spare bedroom or the bedroom where it was believed that missus Polkinghorn had been that night.
Correct.
Yes, see the giraffe on the little side table soft toys.
Yeh.
See underneath that we see another white panel with a red circle or buzzon. Yes. Are you having to help me as to whether, in fact they are the two panic buttons in the house at night in the bedroom.
I would have thought there'd be a Christian bes directed at the OC scene.
He made no note of that, so we'll come back to that, thank you.
Mansfield questioned the taking of a hair sample from Hannah during her autopsy, referring to evidence heard earlier about the testing of that sample in Australia. Mansfield asked Alan questions about rope samples, and Alan confirmed the rope was initially only sampled for DNA. It took a year for ESR to test the rope for both male and female DNA, so.
It was it identify that it could be problematic that the instruction to ESR was the only test for male DNA rather than use the I called it general, but I think the actual precise word is standard DNA testing, which would identify both male and female.
Sorry, I'm not sure there was a specific construction to ESR to only test for male DNA.
Mansfield refers to ESR scientist Fiona Matheson, who worked on the examination of the Polkinghorn home. Matheson was called to the Remuer home on April fifth, and again for a briefing on April six, the day after Hannah was reported dead. Alan rejected the defense's theory that homicide was predetermined, stating the homicide focus referred more to the method of evidence collection. The Crown called their final witness before the defense started
presenting its case. June Lee is a digital forend analyst with the police. He isn't a sworn officer, but is qualified in computer and mobile phone forensics. Lee was a last minute witness. Dickie asked him overnight to comment on
certain logs presented at court the previous day. You'll remember from Day twenty one that during cross examination of Detective Andrew Reeves, who was responsible for examining mobile phones, Mansfield asked about two bits of phone activity he alleged showed Hannah had drafted two messages at about four am the morning of her death. Dickie refers to Hannah's iPhone eight plus and whether it's log entries suggest user activity. Lee
stated they are sourced from the Identity look up service. However, the date or time log entries aren't immediately clear. Lee says the logs show background services that don't relate to a user interacting with the device. This doesn't mean anyone is actually using the phone. Lee further stated the phone wasn't used again after it was plugged in at ten forty seven on April fourth. Mansfield's cross examination focused on whether the phone would pick up on the user drafting messages.
Dicky objected to his line of questioning, stating he was asking the same question over and over. Mansfield asked if there was always a record of the phone turning on and the screen coming on. Lee confirmed this was the case. Mansfield further probed if the log would create an entry if a person goes into messages and selects a number. Again, Lee confirmed this was the case. Lee was the final
Crown witness. The Crown has now closed its case or their argument about what happened on April fifth, twenty twenty one. The defense will now be able to argue its version of events, specifically why why Pauline Hannah may have took her own life while the crown case is over. Notably, there is one major absence from the roster of sixty two potential Crown witnesses read aloud at the start of
the trial. Sydney based escort Madison Ashton, the seventy one year old surgeon, is accused of having formed a double life prior to wife Pauline Hannah's death. The wider jury poul has commonly read aloud a list of potential witnesses at the start of a trial, so that anybody who has a conflict of interest can be dismissed before the
final group of twelve is selected. No reason has been given as to why she's not been called for Coverage of other news events in New Zealand, including the legacy of Prime Minister Norman Kirk and what's causing the country's energy crisis. Listen to the front page The Herald's daily news podcast wherever you get your podcasts. After the court took the day off on Thursday, day twenty three started on Friday. No explicit reason was given for why the
court didn't sit. Then Philip Polkinghorn walked into court flanked by three of his sons, the first appearance from two of them. In a packed court room with the public gallery largely full, defense lawyer Ron Mansfield began his opening address.
You don't need a motif if a crime hasn't been committed, and you don't need a motif if there has been no murder. This trial is really as focused as that. Your issue for you to determine is whether there has been a culpable homicide, and that's really murder one oh one.
During the course of the trial, Mansfield says, we've spent a lot of time looking at evidence that does not focus on that fundamental issue, but instead looked at potential motives for a crime that has not actually been established.
He said, And you might have thought that when the police conducted the search and they found evidence of methamphetamine use, and when they made further inquiries and found evidence of sexual relationships outside of the marriage of mister and Missus Pulkinghorn, that they became intoxicated by the thought of establishing a murder even though when they stood back, as they should have objectively, there was no evidence at all of a
culpable homicide. And the more and more time they invested in the scene at one two one Upland Road, and the more and more money they spent over that sixteen months we're told of investigation, the focus became not of learning of what actually happened, but instead seeking to prove a crime that hadn't happened.
Mansfield urges the jury to give some thought to what they know of Polkinghorn when they hear he is accused of killing his wife, rather than be intoxicated as the police were with the evidence of drug use and other relationships. Mansfield said that police jumped to a conclusion that Hannah's death was suspicious because of the rope check at the scene. This was discussed early on during the Crown's testimony.
Now the police are believing they are investigating a homicide, or at least the potential for one, and everything now moves in that direction without stopping and without thinking.
The pathologist arrives on request, the photographers arrive on request.
We even get two ESR staff.
Coming to the premises and being therefore an extended period or because it's now being investigated as a potential homicide.
And it doesn't stop. It's like a junket that just gets bigger and bigger, and the more time and the more money spent on it, the more there was a need, you might think to get a result.
Mansfield said there's no evidence in the house of a fatal assault or a struggle, no blood, bodily fluids or damage, no signs that Hannah's body had been assaulted or was moved. He said that the two pathologists for the Crown concluded that Hannah died by way of neck compression. The argument is that Hannah took her own life.
However, it's the crown case that it's possible to die by net compression and leave no evidence of that. I suppose, folks, that's the perfect murder. No evidence that the scene, no evidence on the body. There would have to be the perfect murder, or if it was real, can I suggest it's not it's a phantom.
Mansfield said that the defense case won't focus on Polkinghorn's meth use all the relationships the couple had outside of their own. Instead, they will call a number of witnesses to break down the myths of suicide. Two overseas pathologists will weigh in on how Hannah died. An electrical expert will testify on when appliances were turned on in the couple's Upland Road home. An engineer would give evidence relating to how the mechanism described by Polkinghorn could result in
death by hanging by applying sufficient pressure. Psychologist and psychiatrist would give evidence for the defense on suicide factors. Mansfield said they then call a suicide expert from the mental health sector to put to bed what he says are the myths the Crown rely on regarding who commits suicide.
And if at the end of the day you remain concerned about the drug use, or you remain concerned about the relationships outside of their marriage, then you might think that might just have added further to the burden that Pauline was living with at the time, rather than provide some motive as a suited by the Crown for a murder that never took place.
Field confirmed that Polkinghorn will not be taking the stand as a witness. He said that Polkinghorn has already said all he had to. On the afternoon of April fifth, twenty twenty one, when he sat down with police for that lengthy interview you heard earlier in the trial. You could not get a better glimpse than the interview into what he saw and experienced that morning, Mansfield said, and that Polkinghorn was more open and honest in that chat.
Any testimony now would be more of a rehearsed version of events. Then Mansfield called his first witness, Pauline Hannah's sister, Tracy. Tracy is eleven years younger than Pauline. She's lived in the UK full time since nineteen ninety two and is still based there with her husband and children. She, alongside other defense witnesses, today, declined to be filmed or recorded, but we can still report their words. She told the court that the Hannahs were brought up near Havelock North
in the Hawk's Bay, on a small farm. Pauline first left home when Tracy was about six. She went to Victoria University initially, then she withdrew from university and went to a secretarial course in Wellington before moving home. When Tracy was about eleven, Pauline went traveling overseas. Tracy recalls her sister being a kind of motherly figure, if a bit controlling, but she speaks highly of her late sister.
She was an inspiration to me, says Tracy. Tracy says that when she left the Hawk's Bay to move to Auckland, Pauline was there too. She helped me get my flat. Pauline and Tracy were in Auckland at the same time for two years before Tracy moved home to the Hawk's Bay to care for their sick farm when he died. Tracy eventually moved to Australia then the UK, and that's where she stayed. Did you remain in contact with Pauline, asks Mansfield. Yes, Tracy replied. After Pauline met Philip in
the mid nineteen nineties. They would frequently visit the UK. They'd see each other every other year or two, and there were phone calls on Christmas in Easter. We weren't in daily contact, but we were a fairly close family at that time, Tracy said. Mansfield asks about an incident in the family. There was an argument between Pauline and their mother Fay in the kitchen around nineteen ninety two. This isn't the wake of the death of their father.
It escalated Pauline was having an emotional crisis. She was shouting and crying, and her mother, unusually was also crying. Tracy says she went into the kitchen and intervened, asking why she was upsetting their mother. Then she turned her anger onto me, and I can't remember. There was toing and frowing, and all of a sudden, she said that she'd tried to kill herself. She flashed her arms up at us, as if to say she'd tried to harm herself, says Tracy. Did she say she'd try to harm herself
in that way? Asks Mansfield. No, says Tracy. She just signaled it. Tracy said, the world stopped, and she can't remember what she said. Next, she said she should have followed up, but she was only twenty one and suicide wasn't something spoken of in New Zealand at the time. Did you ever follow up, asks Mansfield. I didn't, and I deeply regret it, says Tracy. It was never mentioned again. Tracy details the falling out she had with her siblings
in recent years. It stems from the transfer of ownership of the family farm, long Lands to Bruce, Pauline and Tracy brother who testified for the Crown earlier in the trial. Their mother, Fay, wanted to stay on the property and did for many years until her descent into dementia became too difficult to handle. Bruce proposed a retirement home, which Tracy disagreed with. Pauline did too initially, but eventually sided
with Bruce. When Faye did move into care, Pauline called Tracy the day after to say her and Bruce had had a big argument. When Tracy last saw Pauline in twenty nineteen, at Ring's Beach in the Corimandel, where the Polkinghorns had a batch, she said she was not coping at all with mum's dementia development. Pauline worried how frequently she would be able to visit her mother. Tracy recalled meeting Polkinghorn for the first time in the nineteen nineties
at a restaurant in Soho before he married Hannah. Polkinghorn was charming, generous, friendly and great company. I was really happy for my sister, Tracy said. She served as a bridesmaid for their wedding. Asked how the couple seemed when they did meet, Tracy said, very typical couple behavior. Happy couple behavior. Tracy and her husband would holiday with Pauline and Philip. They took holidays together, including a canal holiday in Wales and one in the Greek island of Santorini.
Pauline did a reading at Tracy's London wedding in two thousand and five. Tracy would come to New Zealand too. It always just seemed like a normal husband and wife relationship to me, she said. Under questioning from Mansfield, Tracy said repeatedly that she did not see any signs of anything unusual between Pauline and Philip on the times she stayed with them. She did learn from her brother Bruce in April twenty nineteen about Philip having an affair with
a woman in Australia. Tracy had testified that she never discussed this with Pauline. Tracy said that she was concerned by an email Pauline sent in May twenty twenty, which we've heard about earlier in the trial, where Pauline had said she hadn't had a day off in eight weeks. In the midst of the COVID response. Like other witnesses, Tracy testified that Pauline was a hard worker and she took Pride in her appearance. She wasn't sure how much
Pauline drank, though thinks Philip drank less than her. Tracy was aware that Pauline took antidepressants. The Crowns Brian Dickie then started his cross examination. He pushed Tracy to be more specific on timings of when the alleged suicide attempt happened. She couldn't provide details other than it took place between May nineteen ninety and February nineteen ninety two. Tracy asked Dickie if he was accusing her of lying and that
she took offense to that. Well, take all the offense you like, but just try and answer the questions, he said. Tracy said that she did not have any details on the specifics of Pauline's alleged attempt, saying her sister was having an emotional meltdown and she wasn't going to sit there questioning her. She said she didn't remember it until after she was told police had died in May twenty twenty one, but before she made her statement to police.
Tracy admitted that she was critical of the police investigation and the focus on Philip. Asked by Dickie if she had already taken a point of view about what happened. Tracy said, so had the police. Dickie read a text exchange between Philip and Tracy after Pauline's death. I'm so toxic about the enz police, Polkinghorn wrote, saying he wasn't sure he could treat another police officer as a patient. They've treated you appallingly whatever happened to innoc until proven guilty,
Tracy replied. In a further question by Mansfield, Tracy said that she had not been contacted by Pauline. Around Christmas twenty nineteen to say she had contacted a mental health crisis team. The next defense witness was Polkinghorn's first wife and the mother of his three sons, who has been granted interim name suppression. She and Polkinghorn were at the University of Otago in the nineteen seventies, but didn't meet until a mutual friend later invited them to a party,
telling her Polkinghorn wanted to meet her. They started dating and later married. They spent some time in Nelson, where he was a house surgeon, traveled abroad, moved to Dunedin for four years for training, then went to London for Polkinghorn's postgraduate training at an eye hospital. They separated in nineteen ninety one. She said that their marriage broke up due to Philip having an affair. She said that Polkinghorn
has never threatened or used violence during the marriage. The last two witnesses of the day were neighbors from Rings Beach, Corrimandel. Earlier in the trial, witnesses for the Crown testified of Polkinghorn's demeanor changing over the years. In twenty nineteen, Polkinghorn didn't come down for Christmas, which was noticed by his neighbors. As we've heard several times in this trial. Anglican priest Gillian Reid was called first. She'd known the couple for
more than thirty years. Her batch was only about five hundred meters from the polking Horns. They'd see each other two or three times a year. Reid saw more of them when she moved to the community permanently ten years ago. Hannah would sometimes make an effort to see her, Reid said. She said that Hannah felt she wasn't achieving the standards she set for herself, and testified that in January twenty twenty one, Hannah seemed to have lost some weight, Reid said.
Hannah expressed that she was struggling. Under cross examination by Brian Dickie. Reid said that's the only time Hannah ever spoke of her concerns. The final witness of the week was mechanic David Martin Daniels. His wife and her sisters also had a rings beach batch. He said they got to know the polking Horns, would see them four, five, six times a year. He counted himself amongst Polkinghorn's fishing buddies. Daniels said he never saw polking Horn under the influence
of drug or lose his temper. He said he didn't think Polkinghorn's absence in Christmas twenty nineteen was notable, Just as Graham Lang briefly addressed the jury and said that it seemed likely that the trial would enter a seventh week the week of September ninth. The trial continues on Monday. 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 Sills and sound engineer Patty Fox, additional production support by Helen King, additional reporting from The Heralds Craig Captan and George Block. And for more coverage of the Polkinghorn Trial, head to enzid herold dot co dot nz