- Philip Polkinghorne, accused of murder, is on trial for allegedly killing his wife in April 2021.
- Crown lawyer Alysha McClintock claims Polkinghorne led a double life involving drugs and affairs.
- Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield argues Pauline Hanna’s death was a suicide, not murder.
- A Herald podcast series on the Pokinghorne trial takes you inside the courtroom.
Week two of the Philip Polkinghorne murder trial gets under way today with an ESR forensic scientist returning to the witness box for more cross-examination.
Last week, the jury heard how tests identified traces of what was probably blood near a drain in the laundry sink, and near the drain of the bathroom next to the bedroom where Pauline Hanna was believed to have spent her final night.
Dressed in a suit and sitting behind his lawyer, Polkinghorne has been listening intently to the evidence. Thirteen witnesses took the stand in the first five days of the trial. Crown lawyers told the jury of three men and nine women they will hear from 62 witnesses in total.
Polkinghorne has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, Pauline Hanna, in their Remuera home in April 2021.
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Crown lawyer Alysha McClintock alleged Polkinghorne lived a “double life”, telling the court he engaged in extramarital affairs, visited sex workers and used methamphetamine. She suggested aspects of this “double life” were getting harder and harder to keep from his wife, and it eventually culminated in Polkinghorne strangling Hanna.
But Polkinghorne’s defence lawyer, Ron Mansfield, KC, argued police were desperate to find evidence of wrongdoing, telling the jury the couple were happy, they had an “open” relationship, and that Polkinghorne’s drug use was “irrelevant”. Mansfield told the court Hanna, who had a history of depression, took her own life.
The orange rope
The Crown has claimed orange rope found at the couple’s home after Polkinghorne called 111 was all part of a charade – an attempt to stage the scene to make it appear Hanna has taken her own life.
One section of rope was found tied to balustrades at the top of the internal stairs. The jury was told a tension test carried out by police at the scene found it would not bear the weight of a person.
But Mansfield said there was a credible explanation.
After discovering his wife’s body, he told the court, Polkinghorne ran upstairs to undo the rope, which changed how it appeared when police examined it.
The jury was shown CCTV footage of Pauline Hanna using the same orange rope to secure a load of rubbish at a South Auckland tip the day before she died.
‘Suspicious circumstances’
The jury heard police who attended the scene felt things did not add up. A police constable took Polkinghorne’s statement about what happened on the morning his wife died. When this was finished, the officer said a colleague showed him his hand which had a scribble on it with the code 1C. 1C is police code for “suspicious circumstances”.
Philip Polkinghorne and his wife slept in separate bedrooms.
A photo of Hanna’s room on the day she died showed it was a mess. A blue ottoman was tipped on its side, bed covers and pillows were on the ground and the top sheet was missing. It was later found slightly damp in a dryer.
The trial is expected to run for six weeks.
