Speaker 1: Kyoda. 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 several weeks, in conjunction
Speaker 1: with our usual daily episodes, will be bringing you regular
Speaker 1: coverage as one of the most high profile trials of
Speaker 1: the year makes its way through the High Court at Auckland.
Speaker 1: A warning, this podcast contains disturbing content. Week six of
Speaker 1: the trial of Philip Polkinghorn continued with the defense's case.
Speaker 1: The former Auckland eye 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. Witnesses
Speaker 1: for the defense revealed a different side to polking Horn
Speaker 1: then what we've previously heard, with former colleagues and neighbors
Speaker 1: describing him as funny, generous and caring, while the case
Speaker 1: took another dive into the couple's accounts, electricity usage the
Speaker 1: morning Hannah died and the reappearance of a red mark
Speaker 1: on the stairs, and the defense pathologist weighed in as well.
Speaker 1: Day twenty four started with an ophthalmologist the man is
Speaker 1: intending to seek permanent name suppression, so we can't reveal
Speaker 1: much about him, including his sub speciality. The man, like
Speaker 1: all defense witnesses so far in the trial, declined to
Speaker 1: be filmed or recorded, but we can still report on
Speaker 1: what they said. The witness said he's known the defendant
Speaker 1: since Polkinghorn was completing his training in London in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties. The witness says he met Pauline Hannah
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen nineties when she was a manager
Speaker 1: of the eye department at Auckland Hospital, before she went
Speaker 1: on to work with the county's Monaco DHB, where she
Speaker 1: remained until her death. Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield asked about
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn's reputation. The witness agrees he was respected as an
Speaker 1: expert in his sub specialty and his standing was reflected
Speaker 1: by invitations to speak overseas. Polkinghorn had founded the business
Speaker 1: that became Auckland I in two thousand and he worked
Speaker 1: in other parts of the country providing services as well.
Speaker 1: He gained an associate professorship at the University of Auckland too.
Speaker 1: The witness said that Hannah would travel with Polkinghorn regularly
Speaker 1: for those overseas trips. Mansfield asked about the witness's personal
Speaker 1: relationship with Polkinghorn. He says they would sometimes see each
Speaker 1: other on holiday and on other social occasions, maybe once
Speaker 1: or twice a year. The majority of their social interactions
Speaker 1: were via their professional work at functions organized by auckland I.
Speaker 1: The witness became a trustee on one of Polkinghorn's various trusts.
Speaker 1: When he became the trustee, it was the fashion for
Speaker 1: there to be someone outside the trust to be a trustee,
Speaker 1: someone trusted by a family. I saw my role as
Speaker 1: a tie breaker if there was a need, he said.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, he asked to be removed from the
Speaker 1: trust due to an increasing pressure in general in New
Speaker 1: Zealand on trustees to be more involved. He was contacted
Speaker 1: by Hannah in August twenty twenty and asked if he
Speaker 1: could sign something for the trust. In March twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: the month before Hannah's death, the witness had further contact
Speaker 1: with Hannah regarding documents so he could finally come off
Speaker 1: the trust as a trustee. Hannah brought the document about
Speaker 1: midday to their practice and she signed it in February
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, the witness and his wife had dinner
Speaker 1: with polking Horn and Hannah at their Rings Beach batch.
Speaker 1: It was a pleasant night, he said, though finished early
Speaker 1: so Hannah would visit her gravely ill mother. The witness
Speaker 1: didn't notice anything out of the ordinary that night. Moving
Speaker 1: ahead to the day Hannah died. April fifth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: the witness heard from someone at Auckland Eye that Hannah
Speaker 1: had committed suicide. The witness messaged Polkinghorn to express his
Speaker 1: condolences and asked if he wanted to meet. Polkinghorn contacted
Speaker 1: the witness on April sixth and was distraught. It was
Speaker 1: one of the worst conversations I've had, the witness said.
Speaker 1: At the end of the difficult conversation, Polkinghorn asked him
Speaker 1: to be a poll bearer. He said he was assisting
Speaker 1: police in their inquiries and had been asked a lot
Speaker 1: about their relationship. Mansfield asked the witness if he'd ever
Speaker 1: seen Polkinghorn use or be under the influence of any
Speaker 1: controlled drugs, to which he said no. Prosecutor Brian Dickie
Speaker 1: then began his cross examination, asking if Hannah did most
Speaker 1: of the running around for the couple regarding the trusts.
Speaker 1: The witness agreed and said he had very little understanding
Speaker 1: of the trust and its accounting and didn't know enough
Speaker 1: to answer anything about assets or financials. The witness isn't
Speaker 1: aware of Polkinghorn's relationship with Madison Ashton. I found out
Speaker 1: about that about the same time as everyone else in Auckland.
Speaker 1: He said. He was also unaware of Polkinghorn using methanphetamine.
Speaker 1: The witness again agrees it was remarkable the amount of
Speaker 1: time Hannah spent at County's Monaco DHB and said it
Speaker 1: was a hard job. There are cuts every six months.
Speaker 1: People are leaning on you to increase volumes and reduce costs.
Speaker 1: She would have had a tough job, he said. Mansfield
Speaker 1: then asked more questions about Hannah's COVID role. She discussed
Speaker 1: it at the Rings Beach batch dinner, the witness said,
Speaker 1: and he said it sounded terrible the calls she was getting,
Speaker 1: the fact that she was having to manage this kind
Speaker 1: of thing with one arm tied behind her back. It
Speaker 1: was very political. I know that she was under a
Speaker 1: lot of stress, he said. The next witness was Sharon Jenkins,
Speaker 1: a receptionist at Auckland Eye between twenty fourteen and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. She told defense barrister Harrison Smith that she
Speaker 1: was one of seven receptionists and one of abround seventy
Speaker 1: people who worked at Auckland Eye and Oasis Surgical. After
Speaker 1: a restructure in twenty nineteen, she was assigned to work
Speaker 1: specifically with Polkinghorn and two other doctors. One of her
Speaker 1: duties involved looking after Polkinghorn's outer clinics and Pappatoy Toy
Speaker 1: and funger Ay, organizing administrative tasks, and preparing his lists.
Speaker 1: Jenkins had a house sitting arrangement with Polkinghorn and Hannah
Speaker 1: over Christmas each year, beginning in twenty seventeen. Polkinghorn had
Speaker 1: come to the reception and asked if someone could house
Speaker 1: sit over Christmas. When she arrived, Hannah took Jenkins on
Speaker 1: a tour around the house and showed her the two cats,
Speaker 1: the pop plants she had to water, which bedroom she
Speaker 1: could sleep in. Jenkins was shown the which had laundry
Speaker 1: in it that day. They didn't have a physical outside line,
Speaker 1: so it was always in the dryer, Jenkins said. Smith
Speaker 1: asked what security measures Hannah described to Jenkins on her
Speaker 1: initial tour of the house, Jenkins says she showed her
Speaker 1: the main alarm and keypads around the house. Smith later
Speaker 1: referred to photos of the master and guest bedroom, which
Speaker 1: both contained a red button. Smith referred to them as
Speaker 1: panic buttons, but Justice Lang asked Jenkins what she understood
Speaker 1: them to be. She said she wasn't sure, but had
Speaker 1: called them panic buttons in her police statement in April
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one that initial house sitting went well and
Speaker 1: led to Jenkins doing it again over the next several years.
Speaker 1: She said that Polkinghorn had a good relationship with staff
Speaker 1: at Auckland Eye, that patients loved him, and he and
Speaker 1: Hannah were very kind and generous. She said when Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: came to the clinic after Hannah's death, he was distraught
Speaker 1: and had clearly been crying. In his cross examination, prosecutor
Speaker 1: Brian Dicky asked Jenkins about Polkinghorn's weight loss. She said
Speaker 1: it was noticeable and seemed quite sudden. Asked if she
Speaker 1: had worked out the red buttons were panic buttons or
Speaker 1: if she'd just been told that. Jenkins said her ex
Speaker 1: partner had looked at them and told her they were
Speaker 1: panic buttons. Smith then asked a follow up question on
Speaker 1: when she noticed Polkinghorn's weight loss. Jenkins said it was
Speaker 1: around twenty eighteen and it was quite dramatic, to the
Speaker 1: point she wondered if he had cancer. The next witness
Speaker 1: was Leoni Darlington, who worked at auckland I from two
Speaker 1: thousand and four to twenty twenty two in various roles,
Speaker 1: including as a theater hostess and as a surgical booker
Speaker 1: at Oasis Surgical, the specialist surgical center built by auckland
Speaker 1: Ie in twenty ten. He was very good to work with.
Speaker 1: He was a perfectionist. He had a very high standard
Speaker 1: and he expected that from his staff as well. She
Speaker 1: said they had a good rapport and he would come
Speaker 1: to her for all of his bookings. Darlington said he
Speaker 1: was polite, courteous and generous to staff and to patients
Speaker 1: and would do anything for them, including sometimes foregoing his
Speaker 1: surgeon's fee so a patient could undergo an important surgery.
Speaker 1: She said she never saw him under the influence of drugs.
Speaker 1: Under cross examination from the Crown, she said she was
Speaker 1: not looking for signs of intoxication. Next was Gillian Mary Blakely,
Speaker 1: a registered nurse specializing in ophthalmology. She met Polkinghorn in
Speaker 1: late nineteen ninety one when she was a junior theater
Speaker 1: nurse assisting Polkinghorn in surgeries. Blakely says she used to
Speaker 1: order Polkinghorn's stock and supplies for the theater and helped
Speaker 1: him with teaching staff as the years went on. He
Speaker 1: was very dedicated, very committed. He always had the patient's
Speaker 1: interest at heart, and I really respected him for those attributes,
Speaker 1: she said. Blakely started doing morning shifts at ORCA and
Speaker 1: I in nineteen ninety seven. Ultimately, she worked with Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: for the best part of twenty seven years. She would
Speaker 1: be in surgery with him once a week over that period.
Speaker 1: They had a good working relationship, she said. She said
Speaker 1: he could get a bit rattled during stressful moments. He
Speaker 1: liked people to be interested in the case and preferred
Speaker 1: silence in the theater when operating. Like earlier witnesses, She
Speaker 1: says he had a great relationship with his patients. She
Speaker 1: said Polkinghorn did not share much about his home life
Speaker 1: beyond surface level friendly chats, and she didn't notice his
Speaker 1: weight loss. Theatre scrubs are theater scrubs, she said. Defense
Speaker 1: lawyer Ron Mansfield next called Tony Robert Glucina. He's an
Speaker 1: investment advisor at JB Whirr, which manages seventeen billion dollars
Speaker 1: of trusts for New Zealand clients. The trial heard earlier
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn had invested about five hundred thousand dollars of proceed
Speaker 1: from the sale of a Pappatoy toy rental property into
Speaker 1: that managed fund with JB Whirr. Glucina says JBI Werer
Speaker 1: had provided services to Polkinghorn and Hannah for about ten
Speaker 1: years and that he dealt primarily with Polkinghorn as the
Speaker 1: investments were registered in his name. Asked about separations, he
Speaker 1: said that's common and even if the investment is held
Speaker 1: in one of the couple's names, it's considered shared matrimonial property.
Speaker 1: He met Hannah at a Christmas function where she accompanied
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn and Glucina and his partner, Buffy, a well known
Speaker 1: naturopath and nutritionist, had also socialized with the couple. Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: invited the couple to a dinner in January twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one at the Rings Beach Batch. He said it was
Speaker 1: a good dinner, but his partner noticed Hannah didn't eat anything,
Speaker 1: despite there being three courses and a substantial dessert. Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: is flamboyant, he said, and gave them a tour of
Speaker 1: the house, which they were very proud of. He didn't
Speaker 1: observe Polkinghorn treating Hannah badly, and it didn't seem that
Speaker 1: there was any secret about Polkinghorn's investment with JB. Whirr.
Speaker 1: The Crown in their case had repeatedly suggested Polkinghorn was
Speaker 1: squirreling away money that was at least partly Hannah's, including
Speaker 1: transferring her salary to accounts he controlled. Crown Prosecutor Brian
Speaker 1: Dickie then asked Lucina if he ever discussed the JB
Speaker 1: were accounts when he met with Hannah socially. He said
Speaker 1: he didn't. He said that Polkinghorn did not act out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary when they met him at Rings Beach.
Speaker 1: He said that he was told at the dinner that
Speaker 1: Hannah was stressed. The next witness was doctor Timothy Scanlon,
Speaker 1: who appeared via audio visual link from his home in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. He runs a forensic consulting firm providing services
Speaker 1: and training to crime labs. He worked for the Jefferson
Speaker 1: Parish Sheriff's office for more than twenty years. After Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: had been charged with mer in August twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: he was instructed to provide assistance, including to travel to
Speaker 1: the Upland Road property and review it as a crime scene.
Speaker 1: He visited the scene on March eighth and ninth last year.
Speaker 1: When he was at the property, he found an area
Speaker 1: with a mark and a blood stain or smear. He
Speaker 1: collected the sample, he told the court. Defense lawyer Ron
Speaker 1: Mansfield showed the photo to the court via the screens
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. It's an image of a set of
Speaker 1: three stairs just off the kitchen, between the kitchen and
Speaker 1: the garage. The mark, which appeared to Scanlan as potentially blood,
Speaker 1: was on the second step from the ground, on the
Speaker 1: lightwood paneling on the right of the staircase. Earlier in
Speaker 1: the trial, we heard about this mark from s A
Speaker 1: forensic scientist Fiona Matheson. The mark was tested after Hannah's death,
Speaker 1: and in a photograph from April twenty twenty one, the
Speaker 1: mark resembled a red line with a gap in it
Speaker 1: with a black mark running through. Athson didn't test the
Speaker 1: mark for DNA at the time, as the area tested
Speaker 1: negative for blood. In the photo taken from twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the black mark appears to have a slightly different appearance
Speaker 1: with the passage of time, as Mansfield puts it. He noted,
Speaker 1: and Scanlon agreed that police had said they had put
Speaker 1: commercial cleaners through the property. Scanlan says he documented the
Speaker 1: mark with photography and swabbed it for future DNA testing.
Speaker 1: He said the sample was sent to a lab in
Speaker 1: Virginia for testing. Two samples was sent to the lab,
Speaker 1: the blood like substance he recovered from the stair and
Speaker 1: a reference sample from Philip J. Polkinghorn. Scanlan says the
Speaker 1: first sample was positive for blood and came back as
Speaker 1: a match to Polkinghorn's DNA. Under cross examination, Crown Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Brian Dickey asked who was present when he visited the
Speaker 1: Upland Road property in March twenty twenty three. Zalie Burrows
Speaker 1: and Polkinghorn were there. Scanlon said the trial already heard
Speaker 1: Zalie Burrows was Madison Ashton's lawyer who she recommended to Polkinghorn.
Speaker 1: Dickie asked if there was a risk of contamination if
Speaker 1: there's a long delay between scene examinations. Scanlon agreed. Would
Speaker 1: that risk be heightened if that suspect had access to
Speaker 1: the scene, Dickie asked. Scanlon said, he thinks that would
Speaker 1: be fair to say. Dickie asked about the ESR examination
Speaker 1: of the home. He recapped that Fiona Matheson had testified earlier.
Speaker 1: Reading one bit of her testimony, I have not detected
Speaker 1: any blood in that area. Now, two years later, you've
Speaker 1: detected blood in that area, Dickie asked, that's correct, Scandlon said.
Speaker 1: Dickie moved on to the two photos. Scanlon agreed that
Speaker 1: they are different in appearance. Miraculously, on the right we've
Speaker 1: got two tracks of red showing, whereas on the left
Speaker 1: there's only one line, Dickie said. Scanlon agreed that the
Speaker 1: second photo from twenty twenty three, the mark appears to
Speaker 1: have been altered, but it's of the same length, at
Speaker 1: the same position and has the same void in the middle.
Speaker 1: But said Dickie, it's not as if the mark has
Speaker 1: been smudged while cleaning. Dickie then asked that could have
Speaker 1: come from contamination of the scene, couldn't it. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: a possibility, Scanlan said. Dickie said he's not contesting that
Speaker 1: it's got Polkinghorn's blood on it, but that he's asking
Speaker 1: about the fact there are two different stains different in appearance.
Speaker 1: Dickie said one stain has one line and the latter
Speaker 1: photo of the stain has two lines. Scanlon said it's
Speaker 1: fair that the risk of interference and contamination is exacerbated
Speaker 1: if the suspect has access to the scene over that period.
Speaker 1: Ron Mansfield then asked why Scanlon put the photo from
Speaker 1: the police in his report. Scanlon said he noticed it
Speaker 1: looked like it had been altered, so he specifically put
Speaker 1: that in his report to bring it to the attention
Speaker 1: of the court. He said new fr things could have
Speaker 1: happened after the stain. Mansfield then refers to Fiona Matheson's
Speaker 1: earlier testimony. She said she didn't take samples from the
Speaker 1: wooden area, and Scanlan said that's his understanding too. The
Speaker 1: next defense witness was Dominic Simon Foote. He's known Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: and Hannah for some years after his family bought a
Speaker 1: batch in Rings Beach, two doors down from the polking Horns.
Speaker 1: Foot said he goes their most long weekends and family holidays.
Speaker 1: His parents were friends with polking Horn and Hannah, and
Speaker 1: he dived and fished with the couple and still fishes
Speaker 1: with Polkinghorn to this day. Polky some call him Foot, said,
Speaker 1: the first time the trial has heard that nickname in
Speaker 1: a few weeks. He called him kind, generous, a great neighbor.
Speaker 1: He never saw him act erratically. He said, Polkinghorn and
Speaker 1: Hannah enjoyed carrying comically large glasses of wine. Brian Dicky,
Speaker 1: in his cross examination, referenced the earliest testimony of crown
Speaker 1: witness Stephen MacIntyre, another Rings Beach neighbor, who said Polkinghorn
Speaker 1: had acted erratically in the years before Hannah's death and
Speaker 1: he suspected he was on drugs. Foot saw nothing of
Speaker 1: the sort. He was in bed by nine thirty every
Speaker 1: night for two and a half decades, even on New
Speaker 1: Year's Eve, he said. The defense's Harrison Smith called the
Speaker 1: final witness of the day Ronald Beatty. Beatty's an electrical
Speaker 1: engineer with expertise and forensic data analysis with fifty two
Speaker 1: years experience in the electricity industry. Earlier, the trial heard
Speaker 1: how police instructed Paul Smith from Consumer and Z to
Speaker 1: look at usage data from Polkinghorn's home in Remuera's Upland Road.
Speaker 1: The Defense instructed Ronald Beatty to perform a similar exercise
Speaker 1: to see if Polkinghorn's explanation matched the power usage data.
Speaker 1: Beattie said, the electricity industry settles in thirty minute increments,
Speaker 1: so it's not possible to look at one or two
Speaker 1: days to consider what could happened within the premises. A
Speaker 1: wider set of data has to be used, but we
Speaker 1: can never actually say what exactly happened on any given day.
Speaker 1: Smith's report looked only at one or two days of
Speaker 1: consumption and didn't look at what happened on similar days
Speaker 1: in the past. That is I think a failing actually
Speaker 1: of that side of the investigation. Beatty said he also
Speaker 1: had issues with some of the figures Smith used too.
Speaker 1: The washing machine used in his modeling wasn't the same
Speaker 1: as Polkinghorn's, Betty said, and that Smith had made assumptions
Speaker 1: around the jug. Betty said on April fifth, there was
Speaker 1: a standing load until about six am, when there's a
Speaker 1: steep increase. The increase in load was followed by a
Speaker 1: larger increase at about eight am. Too great just to
Speaker 1: be lighting. It needed to be other appliances turned on
Speaker 1: as well at eight am, He said, Beatty can't tell
Speaker 1: us what appliances specifically we used. For example, he can't
Speaker 1: say for certain if the jug and toaster were both
Speaker 1: used at around eight am, but Betty's able to use
Speaker 1: a list of appliances to determine whether or not they
Speaker 1: may have been used in that period, and the data
Speaker 1: indicates a regular pattern of electricity consumption to other days.
Speaker 1: He said that if the washing machine had been used,
Speaker 1: he would have expected to see the washing machine turning
Speaker 1: off in the data on April fifth, which the data
Speaker 1: doesn't show, so in his view, it could have only
Speaker 1: been run on the evening of April fourth, and the
Speaker 1: same goes for the dryer. You'll remember from earlier in
Speaker 1: the trial, a damp top sheet was found in the
Speaker 1: dryer by police. It's believed to have come from the
Speaker 1: room Polkinghorn said Hanna had slept in. It was found
Speaker 1: disheveled and missing the sheet. Under cross examination from the
Speaker 1: Crowns Brian Dickie, Beatty said that it'd be too refined
Speaker 1: an analysis to say if the kettle or toaster both
Speaker 1: could have been runner that morning, but that he would
Speaker 1: exclude the notion the washing machine was running. Asked about
Speaker 1: the small rise at six am, which he took to
Speaker 1: be Ellie d lights switched on by polkinghorn in his
Speaker 1: bedroom when he rose, Beattie said he can't say who
Speaker 1: switched the lights on, or in fact where in the
Speaker 1: house the lights might have been switched.
Speaker 2: On that morning.
Speaker 1: Day twenty five started with Pauline Hannah's hairdresser and Miller.
Speaker 1: She owned a Remuwerer hair salon where Pauline Hannah had
Speaker 1: been a client for about twenty five years. Testifying via
Speaker 1: audio visual feed from her holiday hotel in Europe, Miller
Speaker 1: remembers seeing Hannah every four weeks to have her hair
Speaker 1: retouched with hair tint and condition her hair. The impact
Speaker 1: of hair dye on the effectiveness of drug testing on
Speaker 1: strands of the hair has been raised previously in the trial.
Speaker 1: You'll remember Hannah's hairstrand test was negative for meth. Defense
Speaker 1: lawyer Ron Mansfield asked Miller how she would describe Hannah's
Speaker 1: appearance when she attended her appointments.
Speaker 3: How would she ordinarily appear as far as her presentation
Speaker 3: is consented, immaculate, so by that hair would always be immaculate. Yes,
Speaker 3: cleare nails make up.
Speaker 4: The whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yes, it's fair to say that she took her
Speaker 3: presentation very carefully. Correct.
Speaker 4: That is correct.
Speaker 3: And I think you've told us that for a woman
Speaker 3: her age, she had an amazing figure.
Speaker 1: Yes, Miller explained, Hannah was always busy with work during
Speaker 1: the appointments, often using her time to take Zoom meetings.
Speaker 3: How would she do the zoom meetings while getting her
Speaker 3: hair done?
Speaker 1: I would do her hair for I would put the
Speaker 1: color on first, and then I would leave her while
Speaker 1: la color was processing.
Speaker 3: And would be on her laptop, yes, doing work and
Speaker 3: taking Zoom meetings. Yes, and that would be on a Saturday. Yes,
Speaker 3: So how did she appear during her time with you
Speaker 3: on that Saturday? In relation to her work commitments, she was.
Speaker 1: Always very professional when she came into the salon. You'll recall.
Speaker 1: Mansfield has repeatedly raised throughout the trial that Hannah had
Speaker 1: at times a thankless job. During the COVID vaccine rollout,
Speaker 1: Miller said she could tell her client was busier than usual.
Speaker 1: During her third to last appointment on February six, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, Hannah had showed up uncharacteristically late to her
Speaker 1: last appointment on March twentieth, and was busy and distracted.
Speaker 3: That's today that you stayed late to accommodate that for her,
Speaker 3: because she was a good giant correct, Yes, and a
Speaker 3: person that you liked correct.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: And she talked to you about her job on that
Speaker 3: occasion as well. Yes, And she had her laptop out
Speaker 3: and she was working away.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: And then as I understand that the last appointment was
Speaker 3: twenty March twenty twenty one, that's correct, she had an
Speaker 3: appointment at two thirty. Yes, she arrived at two forty,
Speaker 3: which wasn't unusual for her. That was unusual for he
Speaker 3: was unusual. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: During cross examination by the Crown, Miller agreed Hannah was
Speaker 1: a busy, professional woman who was remembered as positive in
Speaker 1: outlook and attitude. Milla remembered she was enjoying being a grandmother.
Speaker 4: And she remained very positive in her outlooks and attitudes
Speaker 4: throughout the time that you dealt with her or cut
Speaker 4: colored her hair. Yes, the whole time, including all particularly
Speaker 4: that March twenty twenty one, Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 4: And I think she was she looking forward to a
Speaker 4: four wheel drive treple something that was coming up with
Speaker 4: friends in a little while. Yes, she was, and she
Speaker 4: also really enjoyed the family life, particularly with a young grandchild. Yes,
Speaker 4: and she spoke of the children as her an. She
Speaker 4: didn't speak of them as a stepmother all the time.
Speaker 1: Next up for the defense was Robert John Willis, an
Speaker 1: accountant who, at the end of a long career, worked
Speaker 1: with the firm RSM. He met Polkinghorn in late two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine as a patient. They got talking about accounting,
Speaker 1: and shortly thereafter Willis became professionally involved with Polkinghorn and Hannah,
Speaker 1: looking after their financial affairs for RSM until twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: when he retired. Willis transferred his clients to a younger
Speaker 1: partner at RSM, but stayed in touch with the couple
Speaker 1: regarding their financial affairs and remained their first port of
Speaker 1: call for financial matters. He met the couple on about
Speaker 1: four social occasions over the years. He would speak to
Speaker 1: Hannah at these occasions, which once involved picking them up
Speaker 1: from their Upland Road home and taking them to an
Speaker 1: event related to the Rugby World Cup. The couple also
Speaker 1: visited Willis at his apartment in Prince's Wharf in downtown Auckland.
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn had said the couple were interested in selling Upland Road,
Speaker 1: spending more time at rings Beach, and we're looking at
Speaker 1: the idea of buying a city apartment, perhaps in the viaduct.
Speaker 1: He said. They later went out for dinner at a
Speaker 1: restaurant and Prince's Wharf. Willis said that the couple appeared
Speaker 1: fine when he saw them interact, and he wouldn't have
Speaker 1: thought there was any problems with their relationship. On to
Speaker 1: their financial affairs, Willis confirms he would deal with Polkinghorn,
Speaker 1: but said Hannah was aware Willis was the accountant for
Speaker 1: their financial entities, including trusts and companies. Earlier, Willis said
Speaker 1: it's not uncommon for one party in a marriage to
Speaker 1: take greater interest in the trust and company related affairs.
Speaker 1: The lengthy testimony from Willis went through specifics of various deeds,
Speaker 1: trustees and joint ventures related to these trusts, which you
Speaker 1: can read in full at enzid Herald dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1: There is a point to Willis's testimony. While the Crown
Speaker 1: earlier has argued that the network of trusts and companies
Speaker 1: were used to hide money from Hannah and Squirrel away
Speaker 1: her salary in accounts Polkinghorn controlled. Mansfield's point via this
Speaker 1: witness is to suggest the structure of his companies and
Speaker 1: trusts were standard practice for taxation purposes and to protect
Speaker 1: personal property, and there would have been a fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty matrimonial property split should they have separated. Willis said
Speaker 1: the specific trust, the Hannah Polkinghorn Trust, was set up
Speaker 1: to give Poline a separate accumulation of wealth. Under cross
Speaker 1: examination later, Brian Dicky asked Willis about this. If that
Speaker 1: was the case, then it would entirely make sense that
Speaker 1: upon the sale of its only asset, the Pappatoy Toy
Speaker 1: rental property, for the funds of that to be distributed
Speaker 1: to the trust, not Polkinghorn. Willis answered, you'd have to
Speaker 1: look into the minds of the trustees at the time
Speaker 1: the property was sold to determine what they intended. Willis
Speaker 1: said he doesn't know if Hanna would have seen in
Speaker 1: the accounts before her death. Willis said he wasn't aware
Speaker 1: of payments made to a Polkinghorn controlled account in Australia,
Speaker 1: or to a woman named Jody, or to Madison Ashton,
Speaker 1: Polkinghorn's longtime sex worker companion who lived in Australia. The
Speaker 1: next testimony was from Andrew McGregor, a mechanical engineer. He
Speaker 1: was instructed by Polkinghorn's legal team to investigate the circumstances
Speaker 1: of what was said to be a partial hanging at
Speaker 1: the doctor's upland wrote Home Justice Graham Lang suppressed most
Speaker 1: parts of his testimony and as such we won't be
Speaker 1: able to cover the full testimony here, but we can
Speaker 1: report what McGregor's broad conclusion was that it was physically
Speaker 1: possible for Hannah to have died via hanging in the
Speaker 1: manner described by Polkinghorn to police in the immediate aftermath
Speaker 1: of his wife's death. The engineer conducted his tests at
Speaker 1: the remiwaer A home on the third of June and
Speaker 1: the ninth of July this year. Polkinghorn was home, but
Speaker 1: not observing the simulation he said. During cross examination, Crown
Speaker 1: Solicitor Alicia McClintock suggested to the jury that there were
Speaker 1: so many unknown variables that the expert's calculation was basically meaningless.
Speaker 1: His testimony also missed the point. McClintock suggested, do you
Speaker 1: understand the theoretical possibility of this is not the issue,
Speaker 1: she asked. At one point, McGregor said he didn't take
Speaker 1: into consideration how loose the rope found tied to the
Speaker 1: upstairs balustrade was when conducting his tests because there wasn't
Speaker 1: enough information about how the rope had been tied. He
Speaker 1: also agreed with McClintock that while understanding angles and weights,
Speaker 1: due to his background as an engineer, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a pathology qualification. He also agreed that he needed to
Speaker 1: do some medical research on the suicide method ahead of
Speaker 1: the simulation. Were you aware if Pauline Hannah had any
Speaker 1: engineering qualifications, McClintock asked, adding were you aware if Pauline
Speaker 1: Hannah did any research like you did? No, I'm not
Speaker 1: aware of that history, he responded, but McGregor said he
Speaker 1: doubted an engineering degree or research was necessary. Day twenty
Speaker 1: six was taken up solely by the defense's pathologist, Professor
Speaker 1: Stephen Cordner, lives in Melbourne and is an emeritus professor
Speaker 1: at the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University, Mansfield
Speaker 1: spent around sixteen minutes traversing the witness's credentials to show
Speaker 1: how Cordner might be able to help the case. Mansfield
Speaker 1: started his questioning by asking Cordner to explain what he's
Speaker 1: required to do as a forensic pathologist when he's required
Speaker 1: to help courts or police.
Speaker 2: What I do as a forensic pathologist, I mentioned, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes you go to the scene, but you're fundamentally it's
Speaker 2: an autopsy based medical specialty. So the central feature of
Speaker 2: the medical investigation of the death is the undertaking of
Speaker 2: the autopsy and external examination of the body and internal
Speaker 2: examination of the body, the aim of which is to
Speaker 2: help or try to help reconstruct what happened back at
Speaker 2: the scene. So that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Cordner went on to outline what he was looking for
Speaker 1: when examining Hannah's body. He said he looks for natural disease,
Speaker 1: adding none was found in Hannah. When disease is excluded,
Speaker 1: they're looking for evidence of injury.
Speaker 2: She's been killed, then that men's assault. So then are
Speaker 2: there injuries that are commonly associated with assault broadly sort
Speaker 2: of construed and have that been for me a central
Speaker 2: central concern in this case. There is a general appreciation
Speaker 2: and forensic pathology that people who are strangled, whether manually
Speaker 2: or by ligature, also in a very significant number of
Speaker 2: instances have injuries of a general assault have been beaten up.
Speaker 1: The next part of Mansfield's questioning highlighted the difference of
Speaker 1: interpretation between the Crown and the defense concerning two important
Speaker 1: factors of the case. Cordner said, manual strangulation or ligature
Speaker 1: strauation our injuries with special characteristics. You'll remember part of
Speaker 1: the Crown case was the belt mark found on Hannah's
Speaker 1: neck by police on April fifth, that it all but
Speaker 1: disappeared by the time of the autopsy conducted by doctor
Speaker 1: keelak kesh At the following day. Mansfield moved on to
Speaker 1: another pivotal part of the defense's argument, the scene visit.
Speaker 1: During Mansfield's cross examination of pathologists and detectives who gave
Speaker 1: evidence for the Crown, he repeatedly questioned why they didn't
Speaker 1: photograph or measure the ligature mark on Hannah's neck at
Speaker 1: the scene before it mostly disappeared. Part of the Crown
Speaker 1: case is the direction of the mark more horizontal than vertical.
Speaker 1: It showed the ligature was applied from directly behind and
Speaker 1: not from a rope secured to the balustrade above. The
Speaker 1: Crown said much of Cordner's evidence on injuries relating to
Speaker 1: suicide and hanging by strangulation was suppressed by the JAR,
Speaker 1: though we are allowed to report on the type of
Speaker 1: injuries associated with different types of hangings. Cordner's testimony on
Speaker 1: Wednesday was lengthy, covering many aspects around suicide, the types
Speaker 1: of injuries to the body that are found after different
Speaker 1: forms of strangulation, and the state of a Hannah's body.
Speaker 1: You can get the full details at Ensit Herald dot
Speaker 1: co dot nz, but here's a general summary of what
Speaker 1: Cordner said. Suicide is ten times as common as homicide,
Speaker 1: he said, and in twenty twenty two in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: suspected suicides would double the row toll. They're more likely
Speaker 1: to happen in domestic settings indoors. While people think suicide
Speaker 1: and a suicide note go together, that's not the case
Speaker 1: in more than half of cases, Cordner said. You'll remember
Speaker 1: police did not find a note from Hannah during their investigation,
Speaker 1: but Polkinghorn claimed to a friend after he was charged
Speaker 1: that had found one. Asked about injuries sustained from homicidal
Speaker 1: manual strangulations, Cordner said that there's a likelihood the assault
Speaker 1: will be over an extended period because the victim will
Speaker 1: probably resist and fight back. Seventy percent of all victims
Speaker 1: of manual or ligature strangulation were the victim of a
Speaker 1: much more sustained assault, probably including fractures to the skull.
Speaker 1: Cordner testified that there was no sign of assault, of
Speaker 1: injuries to Hannah or any of Polkinghorn's DNA under her
Speaker 1: fingernails to suggest should fought him off onto injuries. Cordner
Speaker 1: said Hannah was of the age when skin bruises become
Speaker 1: easier to cause and the skin becomes thinner and easier
Speaker 1: to break. We heard earlier in the trial Hannah had
Speaker 1: bruise marks on her arm and the shape of fingers
Speaker 1: like she'd been grabbed, but the defense contends this could
Speaker 1: have been by someone stabilizing her, like a personal trainer
Speaker 1: who she had an appointment with two days before she died.
Speaker 1: As for her injury's post death, Cordner said that they're
Speaker 1: all consistent with the death by hanging. He said a
Speaker 1: lack of drag marks suggest a homicide did not take place,
Speaker 1: and the beltmark that appeared on Hannah's neck does not
Speaker 1: show she was murdered that Mark's disappearance is of no significance,
Speaker 1: he said. Cordner said the lividity of the body is
Speaker 1: also consistent with Polkinghorn's version of events. He also said
Speaker 1: it would be difficult for Polkinghorn to have manipulated Hannah's
Speaker 1: body to look like there'd been a hanging.
Speaker 2: I think people in the court would need to imagine
Speaker 2: what it is like to manipulate an unconscious I use
Speaker 2: that word because that's how a dead body would be
Speaker 2: like to move around and to simulate a hanging by
Speaker 2: perhaps sitting the individual and the dead individual in a
Speaker 2: chair and setting it up to try and create this
Speaker 2: sort of thing. And it really is quite mind boggling
Speaker 2: to imagine that because the looseness and the floppiness is
Speaker 2: extremely difficult to sort of imagine. I think fantic pathologists
Speaker 2: talking about this sort of thing. The starting point is
Speaker 2: that it takes two people to really successfully and easily
Speaker 2: handle a dead body.
Speaker 1: Defense lawyer Ron Mansfield pulled out a surprise photo not
Speaker 1: seen before the trial that showed no bruises on Hannah's
Speaker 1: right arm when photographed at Upland Road. That's despite a
Speaker 1: cluster of for contrusion or bruises like a grip being
Speaker 1: visible on her body during her autopsy. After a lengthy
Speaker 1: testimony that took up the whole day, Cordner's testimony can
Speaker 1: perhaps best be summed up by Ron Mansfield's last question
Speaker 1: to him in relation.
Speaker 3: To an incomplete hanging where we don't expect to see
Speaker 3: any type of injury. Here we have, of course the
Speaker 3: belt impression correct where we wouldn't expect to see an injury.
Speaker 3: So every such case of incomplete hanging in that category,
Speaker 3: it could be said it's theeatically possible that there was
Speaker 3: either a manual or literature strangulation.
Speaker 2: And I think theoretical possibility is a good formulation.
Speaker 3: But there is just no indicative injury, either externally or
Speaker 3: internally of the clients that we've discussed here to support
Speaker 3: a finding that there was a homicidal manual or ligature strangulation.
Speaker 2: There's no evident of a forensic pathology kind to positively
Speaker 2: support a conclusion that this deceased has been homicidally, manually
Speaker 2: or legaturely killed.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
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: Siles and sound engineer Patti Fox. Additional production support by
Speaker 1: Helen King. Additional reporting from The Herald's Craig Capitan and
Speaker 1: George Block and for more coverage of the Polkinghorn trial
Speaker 1: had to enst Herald dot co dot nz it