Polkinghorne, now 71, had been on trial for the past four weeks – accused of having fatally strangled Hanna, 63, before staging the scene inside their Remuera home on the morning of April 5, 2021, to look like a suicide by hanging. He has pleaded not guilty, insisting through his lawyers that his wife had killed herself after years of depression and mounting stress.
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The laptops revealed a couple grappling with relationship turmoil: Hanna’s suspicions about infidelity, Polkinghorne’s frequent searches for sex workers and his money and attention directed at Sydney escort Madison Ashton. It also included a sex tape of Polkinghorne and Ashton and a 2019 “goal setting” document of the surgeon’s in which he listed one of his immediate goals to “avoid cocaine, marijuana, heroin, LSD, methamphetamine”.
But the March, 2019 document by Hanna was the most direct reference jurors have seen to self-harm.
The “I cannot live” reference is the fourth-to-last paragraph in the three-page document, which appears to have been last viewed by Hanna on August 29, 2020. The letter concludes:
“I try my gutz out for Philip and everyone – and there are days when nothing is right. He is my life so why does he not get that? He picks me up when I am second fiddle I (actually 3rd) with the children – I spend hours trying to do the right thing by him. He spends lots of time on my well-being too – but why can’t my efforts be as good as his to me? I don’t know what to do. I do know that this is not sustainable for Philip or me.
“I cannot express my love, admiration, return his love and that fact that I treasure the fact that he loves me first, more than all that I have done – I am lost.......
“???????”
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield noted that “all of their lives are being shared with the community through this trial”, but the letters appeared to be “private communications between a couple who seem at that point to have their issues”. It’s something the jury should bear in mind, he suggested.
Palmer also referred again today to a pair of letters the couple wrote each other, both with creation dates listed as January 2020. But she confirmed today that the letter from Polkinghorne appears to have been penned in late December 2019, a period jurors have heard about frequently in which Hanna reportedly told friends she couldn’t find her husband over Christmas and had to lie to his family about his whereabouts.
“I have felt increasingly devoid in the last few months from our relationship,” the lengthy letter began.
“I have come to the recognition, belatedly that you are not going to change,” he continued after listing numerous criticisms of Hanna, including her spending habits when he earned twice her salary. “I know by now the cycle of how we relate to each other, the verbal gymnastics, the overstepping of the boundaries, the barbs, and then the declaration of love, only to reboot the same pathway a week or month later. My options it seems are dead simple: either accept my lot or move on, apart.”
The letter ended with him stating he was leaving immediately for a three-day “Moving on or Up” retreat.
“I don’t know what the outcome of this retreat will be but to be frank without some sort of insight I am sure I will not be able to continue,” he wrote. “If there is a pill to make it easier, don’t worry I would take the bottle !!!”
During cross-examination of Palmer this morning, Mansfield pointed out not all couples pen letters to each other when traversing the ups and downs of their relationships. Palmer agreed that she had been on numerous callouts during her career when disagreements instead resulted in domestic violence.
Mansfield also noted there were five different drafts of Hanna’s response to the letter found on her computer.
The first version ended: “If you want to make a change (i.e. divorce) please make it now before 31 JANUARY so that I can make arrangements. I am 62 in February and I do not have a range of options. Right now I feel very scared, confused, sad and incredibly lonely.”
Future drafts did not include that paragraph, although a similar line was added to the start of the letter: “However right now I feel very incredibly scared, confused, sad and lonely therefore I apologise if this is not as coherent as you may wish.”
The final draft of Hanna’s response ended: “I love you without reserve, foibles and all – and ask that you do the same and that we enjoy each other again as partners, best friends, confidants as well as lovers. You say my actions do not demonstrate any of this – I am asking you to reconsider based on what I have discussed.
“I am sorry you are so low – you are everything to me and it hurts me too that you are suffering.”
Mansfield also directed the constable during cross-examination to an internet search of Hanna’s four months before her death: “Why do people trample over me”. The lawyer asked the witness if she knew if the search pertained to the couple’s relationship or to work colleagues. She said she didn’t.
One aspect of Polkinghorne’s defence is that Hanna’s depression had been amplified at the time of her death due to her high-stress job helping to oversee the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Mansfield also noted that searches of his client’s laptop found plenty of pornography but “to provide some balance” he pointed to web searches Hanna had conducted for “sex”, “escorts” and “dating”.
The trial is set to continue this afternoon 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.
