WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
The trial of Philip Polkinghorne, the Remuera eye surgeon accused of the murder of his wife Pauline Hanna, resumed today after a three-day break.
In the afternoon, Justice Graham Lang addressed the jury, announcing that the jury would be reduced to eight women and three men after a juror was discharged for personal reasons.
“We will now carry on with that panel of 11,” Justice Lang said.
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EARLIER REPORTED
It’s been a stop-start week, with no trial on Monday due to a sick juror, and a late start of 11.30am today because someone on the jury has a commitment. As a result, the trial looks certain to stretch into this week and it remains an open question when counsel will deliver their closing addresses before the judge sums up and the jury retires.
Polkinghorne’s defence team still has a couple of expert witnesses left to call to support their case that Hanna hanged herself amid crushing work and personal pressures and a history of mental health problems. Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield’s opening address suggests these experts we’ve yet to hear from will include a suicide expert from academia.
The trial still needs to hear more from Sydney psychiatrist Olav Nielssen, who said Hanna had many risk factors for suicide, and who has yet to be cross-examined by the prosecution due to logistical issues.
Also still to be cross-examined is Sydney IT specialist Atakan “Artie” Shahho, who spent much of yesterday in the witness box, and who will reappear for questions on the messages the defence says Hanna’s phone drafted about 4am on the morning of her death on April 5, 2021, a claim disputed by the police and prosecution.
Shahho, who the court heard had been an expert in Apple devices since the late 1980s, examined the laptops and iPhones of Hanna and Polkinghorne. He found several pieces of correspondence not produced by Detective Andrew Reeves, who undertook similar work for the police.
He produced a haunting email Hanna sent herself a year before her death, as yet unseen by the defence, written in the depths of the first months of the Covid pandemic. The email, like another repeatedly referred to by Mansfield, shows her working weeks without a break and expressing despair at her performance.
“I am never good enough despite my efforts – today is the 25th day in a row – but I am not adding any value,” she wrote to herself.
“I want desperately to tell someone and cry and ask for help but everyone seems to think I’m amazing and does not want to know that I have foibles and failings.
“I have tried to bring up with Philip but he tells me he hasn’t got time to go over the negative tonight – he has enough. I must stand on my own two feet but I don’t know today if I have two feet or what they look like.
“So I have had 3 glasses of wine and a beautiful dinner thanks to PJP – but I don’t know what to do with myself. So I will go to bed and not sleep. V unusual for me – and it builds up – who knows what might follow. Have to tell someone even if no one but God ever sees this.”
Before Shahho was called, another pathologist beamed into the trial, this time from Canada. Dr Christopher Milroy. Like Dr Stephen Cordner, the main defence pathologist, who also supported a conclusion of non-homicidal hanging for Hanna’s death, saying there was not enough evidence to support a violent strangulation, he too cited the lack of defensive wounds or internal or external neck injuries.
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.
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