WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
“Darling you and I aren’t going anywhere. We are going to last 100 years.”
Those words of love and assurance, sent to Sydney escort Madison Ashton from Dr Philip Polkinghorne less than three weeks after his wife’s suspicious death, were read aloud today as jurors returned to the High Court at Auckland for the fifth week of the Auckland eye surgeon’s murder trial.
The jury was also shown data from Pauline Hanna’s phone suggesting she might have been contemplating leaving the defendant three months before her death.
Polkinghorne, now 71, is accused of having fatally strangled Hanna, 63, inside their Remuera home before staging the scene on April 5, 2021, to look like a suicide by hanging. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have insisted through the first four weeks of cross-examining witnesses that suicide is the best explanation for his wife’s death.
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Prosecutors, who are nearing the end of their witness list, have presented a circumstantial case in which they have suggested the defendant was prone to angry outbursts due to methamphetamine use. They have suggested he might have killed Hanna as she confronted him over his exorbitant spending on sex workers or his “double life” with Ashton.
Jurors were given a glimpse into that alleged “double life” today as Detective Andrew Reeves, in the witness box since Friday, turned focus to messages between Ashton and the defendant.
On Polkinghorne’s phone, the detective could see that the defendant had used WhatsApp previously but there were no messages from him and Ashton prior to the day of Hanna’s death. Reeves said he later found hundreds of messages on Ashton’s phone, retrieved after police executed a search warrant at a Mt Cook chalet where the escort and Polkinghorne were staying. Most of the messages prior to Hanna’s death, however, were garbled when extracted by the police digital forensic team.
On April 19, Polkinghorne messaged Ashton about her plastic surgery: “You are going to be more sensational to augment that pretty special butt will create a new dimension. For you it will be as exciting as your first breast augmentation. For your business it will I bet drive a tsunami of lust and will monestise your body further but with you more in control. Last for me it will enable me to see a very happy woman and to be frank that’s what I care about, ok secondly I do get to f*** you endlessly.”
Later that day, the surgeon added: “No messages or pictures on either phone.”
The two continued to exchange other messages showing an intimate familiarity with each other, including plans to meet in New Zealand.
“If you passed away I wouldn’t leave the house ever again,” Ashton told Polkinghorne on April 23, to which he typed the reply: “Darling you and I aren’t going anywhere. We are going to last 100 years.”
Two days after that, at 1.36am, Ashton forwarded a link to a real estate listing for a property in New South Wales.
“Interesting something to think about on Thursday,” Polkinghorne responded 30 minutes later. “I am wide awake!!”
Later messages between the two showed them continuing to plan for the getaway at the Mt Cook chalet where police would find them together on April 30. Ashton asked if it was “posh” and if there was a gym, and he replied that he wanted it to be a surprise but would send photos.
“It’s going to be freezing but should be fun,” Polkinghorne wrote. “Do you fancy bungee jumping, wine tours skiing a glacier – well sorry you aren’t this trip, it’s going to be all about US Get used to it, scary though I hope we don’t f*** it up. Xx”
Ashton let on that they had been planning to meet for the past two months despite travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. They might not get on perfectly after being “bosses of our own domains” during the last 14 months of their distance “relationship”, she suggested.
Polkinghorne agreed they had both changed and suggested they see how it goes “with no big ambitions”.
“Okay sounds like you’re breaking up w th [sic] me what the f***,” Ashton responded.
Polkinghorne replied: “F*** no! Christ never, I am not trying to push you in any direction. I haven’t come this far to walk away.”
Without giving context in the WhatsApp message, Ashton asked: “Is this about what I brought up the other night, we don’t have to talk about it I flagged it that’s all. I respect that it’s an issue for you if you don’t wanna talk about it that’s fine too.”
Polkinghorne responded: “Darling I am happy to talk and listen about anything. I want you in my life period. But I am of course nervous after so long knowing how well you have done. In black times I wonder if you still need and want me. F*** lets not be morbid now just excitement go catching up. xx”
On Hanna’s phone, Reeves went through a series of web searches she made in the months prior to her death. Significantly, he said, there were no searches involving the terms self-harm, suicide, hanging, tying knots or depression. She did search, on January 9, for “matrimonial property and trust NZ” and “apartments for sale ahuriri Napier”.
A month earlier, on December 7, she had searched: “is watching pornographic videos normal make [sic] behaviour” and on Christmas Eve she conducted three back-to-back searches: “p pipe”, “what does p look like” and “what sensation does p give you??”. There were pictures, taken with her phone on Christmas Day, of two used meth pipes which appear to have been found in the couple’s home.
On December 29, she searched two terms that Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey asked the detective to direct jurors to: “asphyxia” and “anorgasnia”. The detective said he thought the second term was a misspelling of “anorgasmia”, a medical condition in which a person has difficulty achieving orgasm.
On April 3, she sent a message to one of her sons-in-law to invite him to dinner. The invite was for Monday, April 5, the same day her death was reported.
The detective finished his direct examination by the Crown just before jurors were dismissed for an extended lunch break. Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC is expected to begin cross-examination later this afternoon when the trial continues, Justice Graham Lang said.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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.
