Speaker 1: Hilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and from the team behind the
Speaker 1: front page the New Zealand Herald's daily news podcast, This
Speaker 1: is Accused the Polkinghorn trial. Over a series of weeks
Speaker 1: in conjunction with our usual daily episodes, we'll be bringing
Speaker 1: you regular coverage as one of the most high profile
Speaker 1: trials of the year makes its way through the High
Speaker 1: Court at Auckland. A warning, this podcast contains disturbing content.
Speaker 1: The former auckland E surgeon is accused of murdering his wife,
Speaker 1: Pauline Hannah, who was found dead on April fifth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. He maintains she took her own life.
Speaker 2: When the police walked up those steps at one two
Speaker 2: won Puckland Road that morning from into the house of
Speaker 2: doctor Polkinghorn and Pauline Hannah, they assumed that the man
Speaker 2: who stood in front of them was the devastated husband
Speaker 2: and that the woman laid out on the floor in
Speaker 2: that position was.
Speaker 3: His wife, Pauling Hannah.
Speaker 2: Victim a suicide. Pauling Hannah's death at first pass did.
Speaker 3: Look like a suicide. It was meant to.
Speaker 2: The police going into that house, as they normally do,
Speaker 2: looked around to assess the suicide. And they looked at
Speaker 2: the supposed hanging mechanism.
Speaker 3: The rod.
Speaker 2: Halfway up that valuestrade as you see in the photograph.
Speaker 3: So they did their job.
Speaker 2: They tested that rote, not expecting what happened next to
Speaker 2: happen under minimal tension that rode fell the way to
Speaker 2: the graph. It seemed that things were not adding up.
Speaker 1: That is how Crown Prosecutor Alicia McClintock began her closing
Speaker 1: address of the crown's case. She said that police then
Speaker 1: invited Polkinghorn back to the station. He may have thought
Speaker 1: he could talk his way out or the police wanted
Speaker 1: to rub a stamp Hannah's suicide. But he couldn't explain
Speaker 1: that scene and he couldn't explain that rope. That's because
Speaker 1: Hannah didn't hang herself, McClintock said.
Speaker 2: The police decided to explore the possibility that doctor polk Horn,
Speaker 2: renowned eye surgeon, man of wealth and standing, had killed
Speaker 2: his wife and staged it as a suicide. Now only
Speaker 2: you can decide if he did. He is highly intelligent.
Speaker 2: He certainly sees himself as smart. There is an arrogance
Speaker 2: and doctor Pulkinghorn, I suggest that you should not underestimate.
Speaker 2: The crown case is that he has taken his wife's
Speaker 2: life and he has blamed her for it. As he
Speaker 2: blamed her in life, he blames her in death. This
Speaker 2: case is binary. If it's not suicide, it's murder. Pauline
Speaker 2: Hannah did not die by accident. She did not die
Speaker 2: by disease. She did not die by mistake. If it
Speaker 2: isn't suicide, it's murder.
Speaker 1: Hannah had a number of suicide risk factors, but there
Speaker 1: was no evidence she was suicidal on the night of
Speaker 1: April fourth. McLintock said this case is not determined on
Speaker 1: suicide risk factors or probabilities, but on the evidence of
Speaker 1: those who saw, knew, and loved Pauline Hannah. Her own
Speaker 1: voice in the Longlands recording and in her own letters.
Speaker 3: She was not a woman who had given up.
Speaker 2: She was a woman whose husband was giving up on her.
Speaker 2: She was in the way of doctor Polkinghorn's life with
Speaker 2: the intoxicating medicine eshed it no doubt, fueled by the
Speaker 2: impacts of methamphetamine.
Speaker 1: McClintock says she will start with Polkinghorn's conduct after his
Speaker 1: wife's supposed death by suicide. This evidence clearly portrays a
Speaker 1: man that doesn't fit with a man devastated by his
Speaker 1: wife's suicide. The prosecutor said, Firstly, he erased evidence. Secondly,
Speaker 1: he secretly tried to access whether he had left a
Speaker 1: clue on his wife's dead body. Thirdly, he started to
Speaker 1: try and manipulate those who knew Hannah and tried to
Speaker 1: paint her as suicidal.
Speaker 2: McClintock says, before you, he's gone one step further and
Speaker 2: manipulated the evidence placed before you. He's faked a blood
Speaker 2: result to try and make it look like his blood
Speaker 2: is on the step at that address two years later
Speaker 2: when it wasn't there in April twenty twenty one. We
Speaker 2: are dealing humors of the jury with a very unusual
Speaker 2: case and a very complex defendant.
Speaker 3: He is an.
Speaker 2: A man with high levels of intelligence and self assurance.
Speaker 3: He appeared to be living a very comfortable life and
Speaker 3: renewer with his wife of twenty years, Pauline Hannah. He
Speaker 3: was a renowned professional.
Speaker 2: He was all of those things, it seem, but he
Speaker 2: was also living another life which you've heard about. He
Speaker 2: was living in another world, a world centered around medicine,
Speaker 2: Ashton and their relationship which at least in his mind,
Speaker 2: was his future.
Speaker 1: McClintock said there was secret financial support for a number
Speaker 1: of sex workers and a problematic methamphetamine habit, and those
Speaker 1: two lives collided on April fourth, twenty twenty one. McLintock
Speaker 1: thanks the jury for listening to the morass of circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence in the case and said it's her job to
Speaker 1: fit together the parts of the evidence that can be
Speaker 1: used to prove Polkinghorn killed his wife. Once the Crown's
Speaker 1: done that, she said, you can be sure that suicide
Speaker 1: can be excluded. On pathology, McClintock said the true positive
Speaker 1: findings here are very limited and not decisive, nor need
Speaker 1: they be. She said. The findings establish the cause of
Speaker 1: death as neck compression and not much more, but it
Speaker 1: is speculative to use the absence of other injury to
Speaker 1: support suicide. Defense pathologist doctor Stephen Cordner used the lack
Speaker 1: of injury to support the suicide theory, but he did
Speaker 1: not have all the evidence, said McClintock, such as the
Speaker 1: scene evidence or the prior strangulation evidence as alleged by
Speaker 1: family friends. The reardons all the evidence as to what
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn did before and after Hannah's death. The crown doesn't
Speaker 1: have to prove everything you have heard in the case,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor told the jury, but to convict they must
Speaker 1: feel sure on the evidence that they've heard that Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: killed Hannah and he either intended it or he did
Speaker 1: it recklessly. McClintock moved on to Polkinghorn's actions after Hannah's death.
Speaker 2: He was largely calm with the police and first responders,
Speaker 2: and not so. We hadn't talking on the phone to
Speaker 2: family members and others about what has happened. He was
Speaker 2: described as wailing and as devastated.
Speaker 3: He called himself devastated. Now it is very true, and
Speaker 3: I don't suggest.
Speaker 2: Otherwise that people grieve differently and there's no one way
Speaker 2: to react.
Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting that there is is.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hettrick said, you look, shock can do strange things
Speaker 2: to people. But remember what he's telling us in the days,
Speaker 2: weeks and months that follow her death is that he's devastated, devastated.
Speaker 2: He says, you are right members of the jury to
Speaker 2: stress hist his claim of devastation.
Speaker 1: McClintock said that his priority, having made some calls about
Speaker 1: his wife's death, was to delete his WhatsApp messages, including
Speaker 1: his entire conversation history with Madison Ashton dating back to
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. During the police interview, Polkinghorn left the room
Speaker 1: for a break at four twenty eight pm. McLintock said
Speaker 1: when Detective Andrew Reeves examined the doctor's phone later, he
Speaker 1: found no WhatsApp messages before April fifth, at about four
Speaker 1: thirty pm. None of his messaging before then is available,
Speaker 1: but we know they'd been in regular contact before that,
Speaker 1: and a further review of his phone found he used
Speaker 1: it multiple times overnight between April fourth and fifth, when
Speaker 1: he told police he was asleep. Earlier messages were found
Speaker 1: on Ashton's phone from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: but the contents of those messages have been scrambled together.
Speaker 1: Mclintock's said that's not a coincidence.
Speaker 2: It's not a coincidence that all of the messages prior
Speaker 2: to five April had gone off doctor Polkinghorn's phone and scrambled.
Speaker 3: On Madison Ashton's.
Speaker 2: I suggest, wouldn't you like to know what was being
Speaker 2: said between those two in those earlier messages, But you
Speaker 2: don't because doctor Polkinghorn has manipulated the evidence and deleted them.
Speaker 2: The clear and obvious and I would say only inference
Speaker 2: as to why he did this at that point in
Speaker 2: time at the police station is because they contained messages
Speaker 2: demonstrating that he was not the devastated husband at all.
Speaker 2: If this was an open relationship that he had with
Speaker 2: medicine Esh, mister Mansfield urges upon you, then what's the problem.
Speaker 1: There are also deleted searches, such as how to delete
Speaker 1: iCloud storage, which Polkinhorn searched the afternoon of April fifth
Speaker 1: after leaving the police station.
Speaker 2: The next search that he does and deletes is hugely significant,
Speaker 2: and it comes on the sixth of April, and it's
Speaker 2: on page eighty of Exhibit twenty.
Speaker 3: This search unmasks the murderer.
Speaker 2: I suggest leg ademer after strangulation.
Speaker 3: After strangulation.
Speaker 2: Strangulation is an entirely different Woo took. In this context,
Speaker 2: it conveys murder rather than conveying suicide.
Speaker 1: The one and only explanation is he's trying to check
Speaker 1: if he had left behind a clue. McClintock said he
Speaker 1: understands the working of the body and was worried that
Speaker 1: he'd left a trace. As it turned out he hadn't.
Speaker 1: There isn't an innocent explanation for the fact he searched
Speaker 1: it on Duck Duck go and encrypted web browser. McClintock said.
Speaker 1: She then moved on to Polkinghorn's holiday with Madison Ashton
Speaker 1: the month of his wife's death. It's very telling, she
Speaker 1: said that just three weeks after the loss of his
Speaker 1: wife to a supposed suicide, he was off on a
Speaker 1: holiday to a remote part of the country with Ashton.
Speaker 2: Either he and his devastation just happened to have found
Speaker 2: comfort in the arms of medicine Ashton in the South Island,
Speaker 2: or this is what he wanted when.
Speaker 3: He decided, either that his wife was of the way and.
Speaker 2: He strangled her or what whether he did that more
Speaker 2: spontaneously during an argument. Could be either of those things.
Speaker 2: And I'll come back to this, but this is the
Speaker 2: life he wanted.
Speaker 3: And there he is. The end of the month with
Speaker 3: Madisone Ashton.
Speaker 1: From April seventh, twenty twenty one, Polkinghorn was contacting Madison
Speaker 1: Ashton with limited references to Hannah and her death. McLintock
Speaker 1: turned to what she said with Polkinghorn's attempts to manipulate witnesses.
Speaker 1: He went around to his friend Paul Adrians's house and
Speaker 1: encouraged him not to speak to police. Then there's Alison Ring,
Speaker 1: Hannah's good friend, she said. Polkinghorn went around to her
Speaker 1: house and started speaking ill of his wife, and also
Speaker 1: procured a suicide note he said he'd found in Hannah's bedding.
Speaker 2: He knew, as Allison Ring told you, Pauline Hannah always
Speaker 2: left nut for everything. He knew questions were being asked
Speaker 2: about why she hadn't.
Speaker 3: Left a note here.
Speaker 2: He is trying to manipulate Allison Rome. And as she
Speaker 2: told you, that's exactly.
Speaker 3: How she saw it.
Speaker 2: I felt I had been manipulated by him.
Speaker 3: That's what she.
Speaker 1: Told you, McLintock said. Polkinghorn's deception got worse. She alleged
Speaker 1: he planted blood in his house to explain away the
Speaker 1: wound to his forehead that he could not explain at
Speaker 1: his first interview. She said that while this sounds shocking,
Speaker 1: the evidence tells us this. As ESR forensic scientist Fiona
Speaker 1: Matheson examined the house thoroughly for blood and did not
Speaker 1: find any on the steps leading up from the entrance
Speaker 1: way to the small landing. She did find a red
Speaker 1: brown mark on those steps, but said multiple times she'd
Speaker 1: screened that area for blood and did not take a
Speaker 1: sample because it didn't look like blood and was not blunt.
Speaker 2: Two years later, along comes Dr Pulkinghorn to interfere in
Speaker 2: all of that.
Speaker 3: Doctor Scanlon is asked to visit his house at the
Speaker 3: request of the defense.
Speaker 2: Prior to arriving in New Zealand, he's been told there's
Speaker 2: a blood stain on the side of the stairs. His
Speaker 2: attention when he gets there is specifically drawn to that area,
Speaker 2: but then it looked different. The one on the left
Speaker 2: is what Fiona Mathieson looked at and said, I know
Speaker 2: as a forensics shidist that is not blood, so I
Speaker 2: didn't swab it. But in any event, she luminold the
Speaker 2: entire area. The only blood stain that came up the
Speaker 2: luminold testing was back over by the door. You'll remember
Speaker 2: that two years later. The one on the right is
Speaker 2: there when Doctor Scanlon turns out and he's directed to
Speaker 2: it by whom.
Speaker 3: Doctor Polk.
Speaker 1: There were visual signs of contamination. The mark is in
Speaker 1: the same place, but the size and shape are very different.
Speaker 2: I suggest too, and there just isn't any way of
Speaker 2: being polite about it.
Speaker 3: Doctor Polhan's that there.
Speaker 2: He knows he hasn't explained that mark on his head
Speaker 2: an interview. He knows where that mark on his head
Speaker 2: really came from from his wife.
Speaker 1: If you accept his covering things up, that's circumstantial evidence
Speaker 1: you can legitimately use to infer his guilt to McClintock said.
Speaker 1: For coverage of other news events in New Zealand, listen
Speaker 1: to the front page The Herald's daily news podcast wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. McClintock then moved on to part
Speaker 1: two of her address, Pauline Hannah herself. McClintock said Hannah
Speaker 1: had her challenges, but was not suicidal that night, saying
Speaker 1: that Hannah had been painted as a bit of a
Speaker 1: stress cadet who drank too much and was obsessed with
Speaker 1: her appearance by her husband. McClintock pointed instead to Hannah
Speaker 1: being a beautiful, successful woman in her early sixties. She
Speaker 1: loved her family and treated Polkinghorn's children as her own.
Speaker 1: She could suffer a crisis of confidence from time to time,
Speaker 1: especially in her work during the COVID pandemic, but she
Speaker 1: was flourishing in her job at the time of her
Speaker 1: death and looking forward to the opening of a new
Speaker 1: vaccination center. McLintock urged the jury not to pay attention
Speaker 1: to individual emails, such as one Hannah wrote that included
Speaker 1: the line my life is insane. She said people are
Speaker 1: complex and words on a page don't always convey well
Speaker 1: what sets behind them, especially in isolation. She said that
Speaker 1: no one had seen anything to suggest she was on
Speaker 1: the brink, and.
Speaker 2: To have her actions in going to the tip and
Speaker 2: taking dinner to people can be sort of cast as
Speaker 2: potential suicide indicators. Well, that confused even Doctormenki's who said,
Speaker 2: that's a bit confusing to say that's an indicator of something.
Speaker 2: It seems desperate to be frank to look to that
Speaker 2: to suggest she was suicidal. People go to the tip
Speaker 2: on long weekends and one of the reasons for that
Speaker 2: is they want to go to the tip and throw.
Speaker 3: Some things out. It doesn't have to be a mental
Speaker 3: health issue.
Speaker 1: McClintock said Hannah was sad but philosophical about her mother's
Speaker 1: death and had come to terms with it. Hannah was
Speaker 1: also on prozac for twenty years and took a standard dose.
Speaker 1: Her GP had said she was well maintained on that
Speaker 1: medicine and stable. McClintock said, she's not suggesting the medications
Speaker 1: she was on can't have a negative effect. The question
Speaker 1: is did it. She had been on her medications for
Speaker 1: a decade or more, and the evidence is the jurymine
Speaker 1: a weight loss drug seemed to be helping her state
Speaker 1: of mind. McClintock said Hannah had sought help to reduce
Speaker 1: her alcohol intake in the years before her death, but
Speaker 1: it seemed that Polkinghorn would taunt her with it at times.
Speaker 1: Her blood alcohol limit at the time of death was
Speaker 1: below the legal limit. McClintock says Hannah did not attempt
Speaker 1: suicide between nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety two, as alleged
Speaker 1: by her sister Tracy Hannah in evidence.
Speaker 2: Pauline Hannah's medical records were traversed over hours of cross examination.
Speaker 2: There is no medical evidence to support what Tracy Hann said.
Speaker 2: Here were no marks on her list at all. Topsy
Speaker 2: It is not something this supposed.
Speaker 3: Attempt that anyone who was truly closed to.
Speaker 2: Pauline Hannah was told on Tracy Hannah's own evidence. This
Speaker 2: was both a great shocking piece of information, and yet
Speaker 2: she also told you she kept it buried in the
Speaker 2: recesses of her memory for something close to thirty years.
Speaker 2: I can't explain Tracy Hannah's motivation to say what she
Speaker 2: did about Pauline Hannah, and I need not prove the
Speaker 2: crowd need not prove why she did. But I suggest
Speaker 2: you can safely put that evidence from her to one side.
Speaker 2: Whether it's driven by jealousy of Pauline, by some sort
Speaker 2: of odd fascination with doctor Paulkinghorn, by a wish to
Speaker 2: be a center of attention, who knows, but I suggested
Speaker 2: it is unsafe to rely upon.
Speaker 1: It is clear she had suicidal thoughts in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: The call to the crisis team shows her mother was
Speaker 1: in hospital and her husband had abandoned her at Christmas.
Speaker 1: Her thoughts, though, were not of hanging, they were of
Speaker 1: driving into a lorry, and she didn't get past those
Speaker 1: invasive thoughts, saying she was too scared and loved her family.
Speaker 1: McClintock says she suggested a comment Hannah made about chucking
Speaker 1: herself off a bridge in the long Lands recording was
Speaker 1: not serious. Hannah had significant protective factors in her life,
Speaker 1: namely her family, so it's important to look at what
Speaker 1: she did when she had those invasive thoughts like reaching
Speaker 1: out to her GP. But she was also married to
Speaker 1: the complex personality of Polkinghorn. He was both her great
Speaker 1: love and her greatest vulnerability. McClintock said it was a.
Speaker 2: Husband who she joined for sexual experiences with others to
Speaker 2: please him, and the last evidence of that is in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. Consistent with that, she describes group sex and
Speaker 2: the Longlands recording as something she used to do. He
Speaker 2: was the husband who she called an angry, angry man
Speaker 2: in that Longlands recording when things didn't go his way.
Speaker 2: The husband who knew she knew would have sex with
Speaker 2: sex workers in Sydney, but who she didn't want doing
Speaker 2: so on her patch, and she said that she was
Speaker 2: clear about that. The husband who expected sex from her
Speaker 2: every day and.
Speaker 3: Would go into her bedroom demanding it.
Speaker 1: McClintock said Polkinghorn was a husband who criticized her, blamed her,
Speaker 1: told her not to wear body suits, and picked at
Speaker 1: her about benign things. This was seen by her friend
Speaker 1: John read In and there's evidence of Hannah drafting three
Speaker 1: versions of the pleading letter she was to SND in
Speaker 1: reply to her husband.
Speaker 2: He was the husband who had strangled her and threatened
Speaker 2: her that he could do it anytime. He was the husband, though,
Speaker 2: that she loved despite all of it. The crowd does
Speaker 2: not and has not, contested that she loved him.
Speaker 3: It's clear that she loved him for all as many.
Speaker 2: Facts, she loved him. She loved him dearly. She kept
Speaker 2: trying to better herself to make him happy. The great
Speaker 2: tragedy of all of those is that her love for
Speaker 2: doctor Polkinghorn ultimately cost her her life.
Speaker 3: But as it happened in his hand, not at her.
Speaker 1: There were eleven witnesses who all said, as far as
Speaker 1: they were concerned, Hannah was fulfilled and had purpose through
Speaker 1: her work and her grandchildren. It's only after death that
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn started to talk about her dress, McClintock said. And
Speaker 1: while there's a note in only a third or a
Speaker 1: quarter of cases, McClintock said, the evidence shows Hannah left
Speaker 1: notes about everything. Her pattern was to reach out and
Speaker 1: write down. If she was in pain, she would write
Speaker 1: to herself or write to family to just get it out.
Speaker 2: Because her pattern was to reach out and write down
Speaker 2: she was in pain, that's what she would do.
Speaker 3: She spoke about her pain when she was in pain,
Speaker 3: even to herself, emailed herself.
Speaker 2: She got it out, including when she was feeling low
Speaker 2: April twenty twenty email to herself May twenty twenty email
Speaker 2: to family about being bullied.
Speaker 3: She wrote it down, She got it out.
Speaker 2: She wrote her feelings down all the time, or contacted
Speaker 2: people and spoke to them about it.
Speaker 3: And yet she heeled herself and left no note. And
Speaker 3: I simply say for her, that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't Hannah searched for things all the time, but there's
Speaker 1: no evidence she researched suicide methods before her death, which
Speaker 1: suggests that she had to know how to take her
Speaker 1: own life and the way the defense is alleged. Plus,
Speaker 1: why would she have chosen to hang herself when there
Speaker 1: were a number of drugs in the house she could
Speaker 1: have taken instead, McClintock asked. And then there's the location
Speaker 1: of where her alleged hanging took place.
Speaker 3: This is in the.
Speaker 2: Front doorway, in the most public part of the house,
Speaker 2: where she will be seen by whoever enters that doorway. Immediately,
Speaker 2: which she could have been saved from Darwin life. The
Speaker 2: door's class, as was its panel beside the door, does
Speaker 2: it jel Given everything you know about who, how consumed
Speaker 2: she was about appearance, about.
Speaker 3: Others, who would find who? There?
Speaker 2: Statistics don't tell you the answer with this, Well would she.
Speaker 3: Do in what stated? Because she's naked.
Speaker 2: But for that dressing gown in the most public part
Speaker 2: of the house, naked under a loose dressing gow, this
Speaker 2: hugely proud, immaculate woman impulsively decided to leave this world
Speaker 2: pretty much naked.
Speaker 1: McClintock then talked about what may have happened after Hannah
Speaker 1: sent an email to Polkinghorn at ten forty six pm,
Speaker 1: the last piece of written communications she made. We know
Speaker 1: that she plugged her phone in at some point. Then,
Speaker 1: if you followed the suicide narrative, Hannah got up at
Speaker 1: some point in the night despite the high levels of
Speaker 1: zoppoclone in her system, but she didn't touch her phone
Speaker 1: or her laptop. She also didn't go to the toilet,
Speaker 1: despite having a full bladder when she died. Instead, she
Speaker 1: made a mess of a room, stripped just the top
Speaker 1: sheet off the bed, and took off the pillowcases, which
Speaker 1: appeared to have vanished. Hannah then went naked apart from
Speaker 1: her robe to get the rope, but we don't know
Speaker 1: exactly where from if it's still in the ute. She
Speaker 1: went outside, full bladder in her robe, hair and makeup,
Speaker 1: undone across the street to get it. Polking Horn had
Speaker 1: said he'd sealed the ends of the rope the day before,
Speaker 1: but the rope had been cut between the sealed ends,
Speaker 1: so continuing that narrative, Hannah would have had to cut
Speaker 1: the rope but then hidden the cutting implement in her
Speaker 1: disinhibited state. She then would have had to truss one
Speaker 1: bit of rope to the balustrade without any search on
Speaker 1: her phone and laptop before moving a chair into the
Speaker 1: hallway or without noise or lights. She also fetched a
Speaker 1: leather belt to attach to the rope, despite her robe
Speaker 1: having a belt. She would have done all of this
Speaker 1: without being noticed by polkinghorn On, who we know was
Speaker 1: using his laptop until around two forty four am. The
Speaker 1: rope used was also unnecessarily long and from a needlessly
Speaker 1: high point in the house, and did not have enough
Speaker 1: tension when found by police. McClintock said on pathology. McLintock
Speaker 1: said that it only takes us so far. The Crown
Speaker 1: pathologists ruled that Hannah died of net compression. The defense
Speaker 1: pathologists said they would expect Hannah to have suffered many
Speaker 1: more injuries if she'd been strangled, but McClintock said the
Speaker 1: pathologists acknowledged the minority of cases where there are no
Speaker 1: or limited injuries are where there's a good reason, such
Speaker 1: as a self sedated victim or an assailant who knows
Speaker 1: what they're doing. McClintock said, various injuries on Hannah's body,
Speaker 1: to her nose, her temple, her arms weren't present on
Speaker 1: April fourth.
Speaker 3: It really just a.
Speaker 2: Case of stopping, I suggested, thinking logically about the life,
Speaker 2: because no matter how much you'll urge to discard all
Speaker 2: of these injuries because of the view that there should
Speaker 2: have been more, which I'll come to, it's actually much
Speaker 2: more straightforward and you just stop and think about it,
Speaker 2: because what are the chances that she has both become
Speaker 2: suicidal and had this bumpy old time that's injured her
Speaker 2: in all of these different.
Speaker 1: Ways, And there's a fourth injury, an abrasion to her
Speaker 1: back that McClintock says, is a bit more equivocal. It's
Speaker 1: the only injury the two Crown pathologists both said could
Speaker 1: have been made after death. You need to consider all
Speaker 1: the injuries together, McClintock said, again, the answers here lie
Speaker 1: outside the pathology. Hannah had no evident injuries on April fourth,
Speaker 1: but here she is dead on April fifth with those injuries.
Speaker 1: McClintock then moved on to the evidence supporting Hannah being
Speaker 1: of victim of murder.
Speaker 2: The single most significant piece of evidence in this trial,
Speaker 2: I suggest, is that doctor Pulpinghorn had tried to strangle
Speaker 2: Pauline Hannah before she told her best friends the Reddins
Speaker 2: about it in January twenty twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: January twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: She was dead from net compression within thirteen months of
Speaker 2: that disclosure. That she told her friends that he had
Speaker 2: done that. That's one of the few pieces of evidence
Speaker 2: that's not been contested before you.
Speaker 3: So she did tell him that.
Speaker 2: There was a challenge to the Reddin's memory around what
Speaker 2: she said in the Leader and after and whether it
Speaker 2: was spoken of her gig, but there was no challenge
Speaker 2: none to the fact that she said that he had
Speaker 2: done it, and to the fact that she demonstrated that he.
Speaker 3: Had done it.
Speaker 1: Pheasant Readon said, Hannah became agitated and described that Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: had done this to her before the witness gestured with
Speaker 1: her hands to her throat. McClintock said, Pheasant's husband, John Ridon, said,
Speaker 1: during a dinner in twenty twenty, what she was telling
Speaker 1: them became more and more serious before she placed her
Speaker 1: hands on her throat. After this, she said nothing for
Speaker 1: maybe five seconds, Riddon said, before saying he tried to
Speaker 1: strangle me. When Hannah had defended Polkinghorn multiple times in
Speaker 1: the past, why would she have lied about this as
Speaker 1: the defense suggested, McClintock asked. Doctor Christopher Milroy, one of
Speaker 1: the defense pathologists, acknowledged that while rare, it was possible
Speaker 1: to strangle someone without leaving significant injuries.
Speaker 2: Non fatal strangulation common feature of violence against women, a
Speaker 2: key marker for the escalation of domestic violence. Dr Molroy
Speaker 2: accepted that said, almost all of the strangulation cases he
Speaker 2: has dealt with clinically involved a male perpetrator and a
Speaker 2: female victim, so this is something just to be set
Speaker 2: against all of this talk of suicide risk factors and
Speaker 2: suicide indicators that the experts spoke of at length. Indicators
Speaker 2: don't decide cases. You know, the facts decide cases. But
Speaker 2: if we're going to get into looking at suicide indicators,
Speaker 2: you have to look at this tone.
Speaker 1: She told the jury they should look at Polkinghorn's behavior,
Speaker 1: and I told one friend Philip has become beastly, that
Speaker 1: he was an angry man. She warned her niece not
Speaker 1: to stay with them over Chris and asked her step
Speaker 1: children not to repeat things back to him. Back to
Speaker 1: Hannah's injuries, McClintock said, they are not nonspecific when viewed
Speaker 1: through a lens of control and aggression.
Speaker 2: Either she's been surprised in the ensuing struggle, she's been
Speaker 2: struck and punched and gripped and strangled, or what there's
Speaker 2: an argument during which she's been struck and punched and
Speaker 2: gripped and strangle. You don't need to prove which there
Speaker 2: isn't a camera in that role. This is about connecting
Speaker 2: everything together, so it's really important not to get trapped
Speaker 2: into isolating bits of evidence.
Speaker 1: The crown doesn't have to prove what type of strangulation
Speaker 1: was used, McClintock said. In a criminal trial, the exact
Speaker 1: mechanism of death does not need to be proven, but
Speaker 1: you do need to be sure the neck compression was
Speaker 1: caused by Polkinghorn and not Hannah hanging herself she told
Speaker 1: the jury. McClintock said that the jury should also remember
Speaker 1: that Polkinghorn is a doctor and would have been avoiding
Speaker 1: making it look like he killed his wife. The Crown
Speaker 1: must prove two things that Polkinghorn killed Hannah, and at
Speaker 1: the time he did that he either intended to kill
Speaker 1: her or was reckless as to whether his actions would
Speaker 1: kill her. While the Crown does not need to prove motive,
Speaker 1: it's helpful to look at what was going on in
Speaker 1: their relationship. The evidence shows that Hannah knew Polkinghorn had
Speaker 1: sex with prostitutes, and she may have joined in in
Speaker 1: years past to please him, but she didn't enjoy it
Speaker 1: and wasn't happy about his infidelity, and there is no
Speaker 1: evidence of it being an open relationship. In April twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, it's unclear why he didn't leave her, and
Speaker 1: the reasons could have been anything from arrogance to appearances
Speaker 1: to money. McClintock said, while Hannah was scared, he had
Speaker 1: a big shot lawyers on his side, and that she
Speaker 1: wouldn't have any money in her name anymore if she
Speaker 1: left him. There were also concerns about finances, to the
Speaker 1: point that Hannah opened a personal loan account right on
Speaker 1: the cusp of her death. McClintock said, we must add
Speaker 1: to all of this that Hannah was a woman whose
Speaker 1: husband was on math.
Speaker 3: He's preoccupied.
Speaker 2: It's some level with each of these things as well
Speaker 2: other women, money, meth.
Speaker 3: The real problem in his mind that supports this is why.
Speaker 2: So whether he decided to end it having watched videos
Speaker 2: that night for Madison, Ashton smoked myth and surprised his wife.
Speaker 2: Whether they argued and he strangled her during that both.
Speaker 3: Are available.
Speaker 1: Alsia McClintock turned to Polkingcorn's life in the eighteen months
Speaker 1: before his wife's death.
Speaker 2: There's three aspects to who he had become on the
Speaker 2: night of four April. His behavior had changed. He had
Speaker 2: become increasingly angry and agitated. That might tie to his
Speaker 2: use of myth fetomene.
Speaker 3: He's obsessed with medicine Ashton. He thinks he's setting up
Speaker 3: a life with her. It's clear in his.
Speaker 2: Messages that that's what he thinks. He's hemorrhaging money and
Speaker 2: money was an issue he's preoccupied with. So again, any
Speaker 2: one or more of these support the inference the logical
Speaker 2: conclusion that these two argued about something at night, or
Speaker 2: these issues boiled over for doctor Pulkinghorn that night and
Speaker 2: his decision to strangle his wife.
Speaker 1: Many people picked up on the fact he was acting differently,
Speaker 1: including being more irritable at work and disclosing his meth
Speaker 1: us to colleagues. At the same time, He's going through
Speaker 1: the cash and has been controlling of and abusive too
Speaker 1: his wife, and had an ever developing relationship with the
Speaker 1: Madison Ashton. The suggestion he's not responsible for the meth
Speaker 1: in the toilet adjoining Hannah's room is just silly, McClintock said.
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn had also tried to blame the meth pipe found
Speaker 1: at auckland I on others. Unusual behavior and aggression are
Speaker 1: symptoms of meth use, as we heard from an expert witness,
Speaker 1: doctor Emma Schwartz, and it is also associated with an
Speaker 1: increased libido. Hannah had complained to friends about him wanting
Speaker 1: sex every day, calling him a sex fiend. Schwartz also
Speaker 1: testified that meth use is associated with an increased risk
Speaker 1: of violence.
Speaker 2: Being an older, wealthy, privileged man does not make him.
Speaker 3: I muse on the effect of.
Speaker 1: On to Madison Ashton, McClintock said that Polkinghorn is emotionally
Speaker 1: and financially fully invested in Ashton at the time of
Speaker 1: Hannah's death. It doesn't matter what Ashton's true intentions were
Speaker 1: or whether she was genuine or not genuine. McClintock says,
Speaker 1: it's about what he thought and what he wanted.
Speaker 3: This dream life that he had Madison Ashton could.
Speaker 2: Not be reconciled with the life he had at home
Speaker 2: with Pauline Hannah.
Speaker 3: Cracks were starting to show She's.
Speaker 2: Worried, Pauling Hannah's worried. She's being worried throughout twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: You know that something's got to get and the tensions
Speaker 2: between these two and the collision of these two worlds.
Speaker 1: Evidence shows he was a man spending hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars on sex workers and drugs to try and
Speaker 1: keep his second life away from Hannah.
Speaker 3: When you draw that together, there's one person in this marriage,
Speaker 3: Miss Hannah, who actually had her life pretty together at
Speaker 3: this point despite her struggles, but she was busy.
Speaker 2: She had struggles with her husband, but she's busy and
Speaker 2: pretty together despite all of it. She turns up dead
Speaker 2: under a sheet the bottom of the stairs, totally out
Speaker 2: of the blue and a shock to all of those
Speaker 2: close to her.
Speaker 1: Onto the night itself, McClintock said that Polkinghorn lied to
Speaker 1: police about going to bed at ten pm on April fourth,
Speaker 1: with data showing his phone active after that, including him
Speaker 1: putting it on airplane mode between one eleven am and
Speaker 1: eight oh six am. He still used his phone during
Speaker 1: that time. There is photo and video app usage through
Speaker 1: to eight oh five am, two minutes before he calls
Speaker 1: one one one.
Speaker 3: He is active for much of this night. And the
Speaker 3: point is he had plenty of time to kill her.
Speaker 2: Whether it's between eleven sixteen and one team one window
Speaker 2: two forty four and six forty six another one now,
Speaker 2: no one can say.
Speaker 3: The point is is clenty.
Speaker 2: Of time and either of those windows, plenty of time
Speaker 2: to get himself in a state about Madison Aston message
Speaker 2: her or her message him, plenty of time have a
Speaker 2: toot on his meth pipe, plenty of time to either
Speaker 2: surprise his.
Speaker 3: Wife in her bedroom or argue with her and strangle
Speaker 3: her there somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Don't have to be sure about where upstairs bedroom does
Speaker 2: seem the most likely place. Plenty of time for his
Speaker 2: wife to at least leave one.
Speaker 3: Mark on him as she tried to fight back that
Speaker 3: cut to his head.
Speaker 2: That cut he simply couldn't and didn't explain in either
Speaker 2: his first written statement to the police or his police interview.
Speaker 2: Noticed by all the first responders.
Speaker 1: Are photos sent to Madison Ashton on April fourth shows
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn didn't have a mark then, and there's also meth
Speaker 1: traces in Hannah's toilet that puts him in the room
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want that. McClintock said, he knows what
Speaker 1: happened when he went in then he killed his what.
Speaker 2: He desperately doesn't want to be put in that room.
Speaker 1: On his own account, polking Horn was going to the
Speaker 1: gym twice a week with personal trainer Barry Payne. McClintock
Speaker 1: said he could have carried Hannah down the stairs. There's
Speaker 1: also an important detail suggesting she was brought down the
Speaker 1: stairs she's covered in a sheet when first responders arrive,
Speaker 1: and a sheet is also missing from the bed where
Speaker 1: she slept. The sheet was on top of her under
Speaker 1: the duvet. No sheet was mentioned in the interview. McClintock
Speaker 1: said Polking had ample time to stage the scene as
Speaker 1: a hanging and would not have used surgical knots as
Speaker 1: the defense suggested. McClintock said, we must prove Pauline Hannah
Speaker 1: was killed by him and with murderous intent.
Speaker 3: That's what we must prove every nuance in the evidence.
Speaker 3: We need not prove he had.
Speaker 2: Time to do all of the things I've gone through.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, as I referred to yesterday, there.
Speaker 3: Was a time limit on him here. There was a
Speaker 3: pt session booked.
Speaker 2: In with Barry at nine am that morning. Pauline had
Speaker 2: arranged to go first. She had a work meeting as
Speaker 2: well afterwards, so he knows alarm bells are going to
Speaker 2: be ringing if she is not with Barry at nine am.
Speaker 1: He had also been so active that night he never
Speaker 1: plugged his phone in. McClintock said, by comparison, Hannah's phone
Speaker 1: was not used after ten seven pm on April fourth,
Speaker 1: and the defense's suggestion that she drafted two messages overnight
Speaker 1: are a complete red herring. In comparison, Polkinghorn's phone was
Speaker 1: active throughout the night.
Speaker 2: Something has happened between them that night. Whether he is high,
Speaker 2: low strung out on meth, we can't know which.
Speaker 3: But the drug does its.
Speaker 2: Effects continued after the period of intoxication.
Speaker 3: Doctor Schwartz told you that, so.
Speaker 2: Its ability to play a role in aggression and behavior
Speaker 2: remains regardless of its precisely when he may have taken it.
Speaker 2: In simple terms, his wife has died on a night
Speaker 2: when it is clear he is awake much of that night,
Speaker 2: and he has inexplicably hit his phone on airplane mind
Speaker 2: and he has had time to do all of these things.
Speaker 1: There was a time limit, and Polkinghorn did not tidy
Speaker 1: the upstairs room or flush the toilet. McClintock said he
Speaker 1: did not expect the police to go all through his
Speaker 1: house over an eleven day scene examination. Onto Polkinghorn's interview,
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: You think there's an interview was unusual, weird even I'm
Speaker 2: not seeking and saying that to promote the idea that
Speaker 2: there's one way to behave or one way to grief,
Speaker 2: But it's an incredible mixture self centeredness, jokingess, relaxed presentation,
Speaker 2: and mixed at times with an almost episode of what
Speaker 2: appears on.
Speaker 3: Its face to be acting.
Speaker 2: It breaks down in grief and then bounces back and
Speaker 2: starts talking again.
Speaker 1: McClintock said the interview is three hours of Polkinghorn trying
Speaker 1: to distract from the scene. But when his pinned down
Speaker 1: on the fact the rope is tied halfway up that balustrade,
Speaker 1: his demeanor changed.
Speaker 2: His willingness to talk changes at that point in time
Speaker 2: when he realizes this photograph that's been pointed out to him,
Speaker 2: what he's been saying doesn't seem to be right.
Speaker 3: Everything changes. He's been called out.
Speaker 2: So I suggest that much of that interview is a
Speaker 2: complete deflection from the truth.
Speaker 1: McClintock then returned to the scene and said she left
Speaker 1: it last deliberately to help the jury understand Polkinghorn's willingness
Speaker 1: to manipulate people and evidence.
Speaker 2: The interview was a deflection because the scene that those
Speaker 2: first responders went to that morning was a deception. Pauline
Speaker 2: Hannah had not committed suicide, and the scene the police
Speaker 2: were looking at and that's why it didn't make sense.
Speaker 3: If she had, it should have.
Speaker 2: Been obvious that she had, but it wasn't obvious. You've
Speaker 2: got police forensic scientists combing through it, struggling to make
Speaker 2: sense of it because it didn't make sense. Police officers
Speaker 2: who were there Sadly, they attend suicide scenes and took
Speaker 2: one look at that right satan i over said they
Speaker 2: loved odd so.
Speaker 3: He tested it. We know whatever, it didn't stack up.
Speaker 1: The very first piece of evidence the jury heard, the
Speaker 1: one one one call was at eight o seven am
Speaker 1: when Polkinghorn said he'd found his wife. McClintock said that
Speaker 1: from the point the operator told Polkinghorn to cut Hannah down,
Speaker 1: he would have had to remove her from the chair
Speaker 1: she was sitting on and undo the ropes and belts
Speaker 1: and then lay her down on the ground and then
Speaker 1: check if she was breathing.
Speaker 2: That's a lot to do, especially when he says he's
Speaker 2: in shop. Well he would be if she committed suicide.
Speaker 2: But that's a lot to do. Yet he managed to
Speaker 2: do it all and about ten seconds.
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn was also told to leave everything as you have
Speaker 1: found it, but by the time paramedics got there, everything
Speaker 1: used to facilitate her death on the supposed suicide narrative
Speaker 1: had been moved. McClintock said. The crown case is that
Speaker 1: the scene was staged. An unexplained piece of rope was
Speaker 1: on the stairs towards the garage, untoasted bread was in
Speaker 1: the toaster. Polkinghorn took the belt, wrapped it around in
Speaker 1: his hands, put it in the kitchen. There's also blood
Speaker 1: between her left to index and middle fingers, but no
Speaker 1: injury to her fingers, which McClintock says doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to have come from the bleeding in Hannah's ear. She
Speaker 1: said that Polkinghorn couldn't explain the rope, such as why
Speaker 1: there was such a long tail where it was tied,
Speaker 1: and why there was a piece on the lower stairs.
Speaker 1: Why did Polkinghorn loosen the rope at the top of
Speaker 1: the balustrade. He told police it looked awful hanging there,
Speaker 1: but when police arrived it was still hanging. He didn't
Speaker 1: expect to be interrogated like he was, the prosecutor said,
Speaker 1: and his explanations around the ropes don't add up. As
Speaker 1: for Hannah's room upstairs, where Hannah slept the night before
Speaker 1: McLintock said, it doesn't make sense for Hannah to have
Speaker 1: gone to bed with her room in the state it
Speaker 1: was in. The breakfast scene in the kitchen was a facade,
Speaker 1: she said, and there is an odd collection of items
Speaker 1: in the washing machine, including an acrylic toenail math traces
Speaker 1: and the toilet placed polkinghorn in Hannah's bad room.
Speaker 2: So bringing all of that together, nothing is in place
Speaker 2: that there's this scene that should have been in place if.
Speaker 3: It was the suicide.
Speaker 2: You can't treat this scene as having any sort of validity.
Speaker 3: It's been wholly interfed with police.
Speaker 2: Spent eleven days there because it had no integrity trying
Speaker 2: to find out.
Speaker 3: What was going on.
Speaker 2: It's a big house as well, a lot of rooms.
Speaker 2: They're doing their jobs, they're being thorough. They're trying to
Speaker 2: understand why this is said to be a suicide, and
Speaker 2: yet everything.
Speaker 3: About it is out of kilter.
Speaker 2: They're trying to figure out what happened because the disease
Speaker 2: husband couldn't give them any meaningful insight into what happened.
Speaker 3: In their house.
Speaker 1: McClintock said, there's no one way for the jury to
Speaker 1: approach this, but she asks them to put aside sympathy
Speaker 1: and prejudice and analyze the critical issue. Has the Crown
Speaker 1: proven to you that this was murder? She said that
Speaker 1: the evidence is there from the prior strangulation evidence thirteen
Speaker 1: months prior to the faked blood to his duck duck
Speaker 1: go search, as well as the tensions in their marriage
Speaker 1: and Polkinghorn's growing attachment to Madison Ashton.
Speaker 2: He had the intelligence to do it, He had the arrogance,
Speaker 2: the drivers, the.
Speaker 3: Myth fuelled current.
Speaker 2: His relationship with Pauline Henner was done. He had detached
Speaker 2: from that life. He blamed Pauline Hanner in life for
Speaker 2: a lot see it me, Lisa, He wrote her. It
Speaker 2: is the final insult to her to blame her for
Speaker 2: her own death. I suggest, members of the jury that
Speaker 2: the evidence that you have heard proves the life that
Speaker 2: doctor Polkinghorn told when he rut one one one and
Speaker 2: said that she had home himself. I suggest you can
Speaker 2: safely be sure on this evidence that he's guilty of murder.
Speaker 1: You can listen to episodes of Accused the Polkinghorn Trial
Speaker 1: through the Front Page podcast feed or find it on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. This series is
Speaker 1: presented and produced by me Chelsea Daniels, with producer Ethan
Speaker 1: Seles and sound engineer Patti Fox. Additional production support by
Speaker 1: Helen King. Additional reporting from The Heralds Craig Capitan and
Speaker 1: George Block, and for more coverage of the Polkinghorn Trial
Speaker 1: head to nsidherld dot co dot nz