Pauline Hanna and Philip Polkinghorne, and the Remuera house where she died.
Composite photo / NZME
Pauline Hanna and Philip Polkinghorne, and the Remuera house where she died.
Composite photo / NZME
Steve Braunias attends a kind of sequel to the murder trial of Dr Philip Polkinghorne
Polkinghorne, the reunion.
A kind of sequel to the constantly amazing murder trial of Dr Philip Polkinghorne - held last year at the grand old High Court of Auckland - took place on Thursdaymorning for a pre-inquest coroners court conference at the Auckland District Court, that dismal old pile stinking up the downtown corner of Albert Street & Kingston Street.
There was Polkinghorne, dressed as per abnormally in mad socks of many colours. There was Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock, who failed to secure a guilty verdict from the jury in 2024.
There was Ron Mansfield, Polkinghorne’s defence lawyer, who succeeded in securing a not guilty verdict.
There, too, were the same family members, the same distinguished media, and the same trial addicts who came every day to gaze at last year’s garish proceedings and who have taken on a new, serious role: they were there, they stated, to support the family of Pauline Hanna.
Pauline Hanna died in April 2021 at the Remuera home she shared with her husband Philip Polkinghorne.
Poor Pauline, always the emotional centre of a tragedy, always shoved to one side and dealt with as a kind of PS for justice to administer its slow machineries.
She was found dead at her Remuera house on April 5, 2021. Police arrested her husband, ophthalmologist Dr Philip Polkinghorne, and charged him with murder.
A nine-week trial raked through the hot embers of scandal – heavy methamphetamine use, even heavier use of sex workers – and ended with an acquittal.
It was an epic fail for the New Zealand police.
Polkinghorne teased the officer in charge, Detective Sergeant Chris Allen, outside the district court on Thursday.
“Oh,” he said, “I thought you’d be working at Countdown”.
And so to the pre-inquest coroners court conference, held in courtroom 8.2, on the freshly-renovated eighth floor of the district court.
The polyester carpet was so new that it squeaked. The courtroom was windowless and clockless. Perhaps this is why it started late.
Coroner Tania Tetitaha bustled in at 10:17am, a vibrant figure with the most wildly expressive haircut in the New Zealand judiciary, even more so than the splendidly hirsute Justice Simon Moore.
She gave a karakia. She asked everyone to introduce themselves, “so we can all get to know each other a little bit.”
A little man in the back row stood up and said, “My name is Philip Polkinghorne. I was married to Pauline Hanna”.
He sat beside his son, Taine. Pauline’s family – her brother Bruce, his two children Jacob and Rose, and his wife Shelley – sat in the front row.
Jan from Howick and Robyn from Raglan announced themselves as family supporters, and Detective Sergeant Chris Allen defied expectations he has been relegated to a supermarket checkout position by stating he continues to be in the employ of New Zealand police.
As well as Crown and defence lawyers there was legal representation by court-appointed lawyers Simon Mount KC and Emma Finlayson-Davis.
Media included documentary maker Mark McNeill, who has filmed a three-part documentary series on the Polkinghorne trial, to be televised in April.
That seemed to account for everyone, but a woman called out to the coroner: “Excuse me, ma’am”.
It was Tracey Hanna, Pauline Hanna’s younger sister, appearing on video link from her home in England.
She gave evidence for the defence at Polkinghorne’s trial. She claimed her sister told her she had previously tried to die by suicide.
She appeared on screen wearing a very serene, very fixed smile.
The purpose of the pre-inquest conference was to establish whether there was support for a formal inquest. The Crown said they supported it. The defence said they saw a need for it, too.
Tracey agreed, as did Taine Polkinghorne.
The coroner was about to move on, but Bruce Hanna called out, “I support it”.
Coroner Tetitaha said, “I figured you would, but I should have asked you. Thank you, Mr Hanna”.
Behold, then, just about the first and only time in the whole weird, sorry saga of the death of Pauline Hanna and the murder-accused Dr Philip Polkinghorne, that everyone agreed on something.
Everyone was on the same page, everyone wished to see the day when the death of Pauline Hanna would be ruled in an inquest.
Coroner Tetitaha set a likely date for it, in August 2026.
She said her focus was purely on the cause and circumstances of Pauline’s death.
“The issue will be how it occurred,” she said. “My interest is what happened on the night.”
Yes, that’s quite an interesting subject.
What happened? How did it happen? Who made it happen?
“This death involves a suspected self-inflicted death,” the coroner noted in a minute.
Pauline, 63 years old; Pauline, farewelled at a funeral service at St Mary’s Holy Trinity in Parnell; Pauline, always Pauline.
