WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
Eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne gave just under $300,000 to six women via bank transfers in the years before his wife’s suspicious death, jurors learned this morning at his murder trial.
At least three of the women have been identified by witnesses as sex workers, including high-profile Sydney escort Madison Ashton.
Polkinghorne also made cash withdrawals of $439,450 during the same period – some of which, the Crown alleges, also appears to have gone to Ashton.
Polkinghorne, 71, is accused of having fatally strangled wife Pauline Hanna, 63, inside their Remuera home before staging the scene on April 5, 2021, to look like a suicide by hanging.
Prosecutors have suggested he lashed out at his wife while high on methamphetamine, possibly during an argument over the exorbitant amount he was spending on sex workers or a secret “double life” with Ashton.
But today marked the first time jurors in the High Court at Auckland were given specific numbers to indicate the immense scale of the sex worker spending.
The defence has contended the couple had a happy “open” relationship and that Hanna’s history of depression was responsible for her death rather than foul play.
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Forensic accountant Margaret Skilton, who works in the police financial crime unit, was the only witness called to the High Court at Auckland this morning.
She gave a detailed rundown of an analysis she conducted of five-and-a-half years of banking records from the defendant.
The spending totals spanned January 2016 to March 2021, the month before Hanna’s death.
A chart shown to jurors showed that $106,130 was transferred to Ashton between February 2019 and January 2021. Police found the pair together at a posh Mt Cook chalet three weeks after Hanna’s death.
Polkinghorne was also found to have transferred:
- $35,905 from 2016 to 2019 to a woman named Lee, who was identified by Polkinghorne’s barber earlier in the trial as a mutual acquaintance sex worker
- $72,100 between 2019 and 2021 to a woman named Jody
- $61,800 between 2016 and 2021 to a Northcote Point resident named Alaria who was identified by her neighbours to jurors as a sex worker who would receive frequent visits from the surgeon – his car’s personalised plates RETINA having made an impression
- $13,550 between 2017 and 2018 to a woman named Kimberley, and
- $7160 in 2019 to Ashton’s daughter.
The total amount transferred to the women was $296,645, Skilton determined.
Multiple witnesses have said Hanna knew that her husband would see sex workers.
In a recorded conversation with her brother and niece, she acknowledged that the couple engaged in group sex together in Australia at Polkinghorne’s urging and said one overseas sex worker named Elle liked her better than Polkinghorne.
But she also said, according to multiple witnesses, that she would not tolerate Polkinghorne having a long-term affair with someone, especially in Auckland.
She had contacted a private investigator about an infidelity investigation and told friends she was considering leaving him but needed to get her finances in order.
Hanna’s niece testified earlier that Hanna had feared Polkinghorne had swindled her assets so that she no longer had access to them.
The forensic accountant’s analysis noted that the defendant transferred nearly $310,000 from the Hanna Polkinghorne Trust Account to other bank accounts that he had sole control over.
Hanna’s Papatoetoe home, which she purchased before the couple’s marriage, was sold in July 2020 for more than $1 million. Those proceeds also went to Polkinghorne’s accounts, the witness said.
Of the $439,450 in cash withdrawals tallied by the accountant, $198,350 had been removed from cash machines in Australia. Travel records indicated that neither Polkinghorne nor Hanna were in Australia during many of the withdrawals, the expert said.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC has not yet had an opportunity to cross-examine Skilton about the spending charts.
Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey will continue questioning the accountant this afternoon, when the trial resumes before Justice Graham Lang and the jury.
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.
