Steve Braunias at the Polkinghorne trial: What it’s like to spend four weeks in court

THREE KEY FACTS

• Retired eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne has pleaded not guilty to murdering wife Pauline Hanna in 2021.
• The Crown alleges Polkinghorne, 71, strangled his wife and staged her death to look like a suicide at their Remuera home but the defence says there is no evidence of a homicide.
• Steve Braunias has been covering the trial for the Herald, attending court proceedings each day.

Steve Braunias is an award-winning New Zealand journalist, author, columnist and editor.

OPINION

Week one: You have to go into a six-week murder trial at the High Court of Auckland in a mental, physical and spiritual state of extreme wellness, and much depends on the quality of a packed lunch. I bring in Moroccan fish stew – the famous Bill Granger recipe – between sandwich bread on day one. It’s an ambitious start and I work hard to maintain standards, to set goals that demand character and endurance.

Every day I bring in a thermos of instant coffee – Robert Harris Colombian Brand is the champagne of instant – and a container of nuts, raisins, pretzels and Hippeas Chickpea Puffs Snacks Sweet & Smokin’. This gets me through to afternoon tea. The court cafe is resistant to the time and tide of history, to the bloodlines of royal succession, and retains its name: QCs. Every silked lawyer in New Zealand has gone from QC to KC since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the ascension of King Charles – but not the High Court cafe. Anyway, it does a good sausage roll.

Week two: You have to stay focused in a six-week murder trial and stick to the task, stay awake, write down everything you see and hear in a Warwick 3B1 notebook, and then write the story on your phone on the way home on the bus. The very best definition I ever read about journalism is that it’s literature in a hurry. I love the speed of it, the haste; I love the sensation of actually feeling very calm about it, and writing as though on a beach in Greece, say, or the Cayman Islands, somewhere remote and peaceful – writing is a happy place, a kind of holiday destination.

Except my phone begins to die at the end of a long day in court. I write the story in an email to editors, and continually press CANCEL then SAVE DRAFT. The phone reduces to 10% power, to five, to one... I finish, press SEND, and the phone dies.

Week three: You have to take every opportunity to get some fresh air and leave the courtroom, that house of grief and admin, during a six-week murder trial, and I love to roam the nearby grounds of the University of Auckland to stop and smell the lemon-scented tea tree outside Old Government House. The gardens are a thing of wonder; even in winter, colour bursts through in the flaming reds of the firewheel tree. There is the kawaka tree, with its bark torn to shreds. There is the umbrella tree, the sequoia, the yew. It’s surely the dreamiest university campus in New Zealand. I take the same seat beneath the clock tower every morning and drink a cup of Robert Harris Colombian Brand, then go to court for the latest instalment of a nightmare.

Week four: You have to appreciate the tragedy and suffering of others in a six-week murder trial. They are not there to write fast on phones and dream in nearby scented gardens. But I wake up every morning and look forward to the day ahead, to the remainder of the trial – the defence witnesses, the closing addresses, the weird, tense, floating days waiting for the jury to reach its verdict. It is neither the most harrowing trial I have ever covered (that would be the killing of a baby) nor the most controversial (that would be Lundy) but it is the most Auckland, the most class-conscious, with the most hookers. What a trial, what a thing to write about; I’m already thinking how sad I’ll feel when it’s finished.

The Herald will be covering the case in a daily podcast, Accused: The Polkinghorne Trial. You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, through The Front Page feed, or wherever you get your podcasts.