French investors are reportedly worried about time and cost blowouts on Auckland's City Rail Link project. The Waikato River is safe again from extreme arsenic levels.
V/ NZ Herald
But Ashton says police’s treatment of her left her feeling stigmatised and unwilling to appear as the Crown’s star witness, Stuff reports.
Polkinghorne was acquitted by a jury in September of murdering his wife Pauline Hanna after a trial at the High Court at Auckland. Ashton was on the witness list but did not appear during the Crown case.
“So I’m really f***ing sorry that their court case derailed,” she reportedly told Stuff.
“But you know what? It’s not my fault. I hand it all back. It’s all your stuff, your country, darling. You have a problem with it, but I cannot put this on my shoulders anymore.”
The trial heard how police raided a luxury chalet in Mt Cook where Ashton and Polkinghorne were staying together only about a month after Hanna’s death, which the defence argued was a suicide.
They seized her and Polkinghorne’s phones and Ashton said the relationship with police got off to a bad start.
She later began reportedly offering limited assistance but the relationship was always strained and she said she felt “stigmatised” by police as a sex worker.
Ashton completed a formal statement for the police but then stopped communicating with detectives, who found they were unable to reach her.
Madison Ashton and Philip Polkinghorne were staying together only about a month after Pauline Hanna’s death.
Polkinghorne pleaded guilty to two charges of possession of meth and a meth pipe at the start of his trial. His appetite for meth and sex workers were key themes in the unsuccessful Crown case that he murdered his wife.
His defence team sought a conviction and a fine but Justice Graham Lang stated that, given his “healthy” financial position, a fine would not be sufficient.
