Speaker 1: Yielder.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Pauline Hannah
Speaker 2: is sitting on a boat sea breeze, big smiles. It's
Speaker 2: the image. Filmmakers of a new three part documentary into
Speaker 2: her death and subsequent murder trial of her husband, decide
Speaker 2: to open on. Philip Polkinghorn was found not guilty of
Speaker 2: strangling his wife to death and making it look like
Speaker 2: she'd take in her own life. The Front Page covered
Speaker 2: the mammoth eight week trial in the series Accused the
Speaker 2: Polkinghorn Trial, but today on the Front Page, executive producer
Speaker 2: Mark McNeel is with us to talk about the trial,
Speaker 2: the documentary and the life of Pauline Hannah. So, Mark,
Speaker 2: you've kept it down to three episodes. You and I
Speaker 2: sat through the trial, so we know how difficult that was.
Speaker 2: How can you explain to the public or anyone watching
Speaker 2: these episodes for the first time, how much footage you
Speaker 2: actually had to troll through to cut that down.
Speaker 3: That's a really good question. Well, I have actually done
Speaker 3: this number myself.
Speaker 1: I did it one stage, just just out of interest.
Speaker 1: So we were there, I think for eight weeks, eight
Speaker 1: fives or about forty days or I think about eight
Speaker 1: hours a day, whatever that goes to. It's a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot of footage. I was there every day
Speaker 1: and I was literally taking notes because we had anticipated
Speaker 1: this issue. I was taking notes and writing down time code,
Speaker 1: time of day so that when the director and editor
Speaker 1: had to go.
Speaker 3: Through and find stuff.
Speaker 1: I on my notes, you know, I indicated who was
Speaker 1: speaking when they started this was I thought this was
Speaker 1: a really good point or really interesting point.
Speaker 3: But it was a huge, huge job.
Speaker 1: And the other thing, as you will well know, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: is that court sometimes proceeds at a glacial pace, so
Speaker 1: someone's evidence can be out, you know, given over a
Speaker 1: couple of days, and you have to boil it down
Speaker 1: to the conclusions. But yet it was a real challenge,
Speaker 1: and I think if we had more episodes, we probably
Speaker 1: would have spent a bit more time in court with
Speaker 1: some of those things, because there were some wonderful moments
Speaker 1: in court that you know, we didn't have time for.
Speaker 2: So you had to sit down interview with Philip Poulkinghorn himself,
Speaker 2: but it was filmed before the trial. Hey did he
Speaker 2: not want to speak to you again?
Speaker 4: Mark?
Speaker 3: No. I.
Speaker 1: So we had that interview, and that was an interview
Speaker 1: conducted over a couple on a couple of days, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't just one interview, it was two interviews and
Speaker 1: just for.
Speaker 3: A bit of background.
Speaker 1: So you know, I mean, at that stage, we had
Speaker 1: no idea what the prosecution's case was or the defense's
Speaker 1: arguments were.
Speaker 3: We just knew that he had been charged.
Speaker 1: So you know, like it's kind of very different looking
Speaker 1: back at it with the benefit of hindsight after the case,
Speaker 1: but at the time we just, you know, in good faith,
Speaker 1: we filmed him and his account of it all. And
Speaker 1: after the trial I contacted him and asked him if
Speaker 1: he would do a post trial interview and he said
Speaker 1: to me, it was a phone call. I would have
Speaker 1: to my lawyer, Ron Mansfield, would have to okay it.
Speaker 1: So of course I immediately seized on that, as you
Speaker 1: would and when so, does that mean if Ron says yes,
Speaker 1: you would do the interview?
Speaker 3: And he went yes.
Speaker 1: I suspect he might have been using Ron as a
Speaker 1: convenient excuse to say no, and I would understand PEAPs
Speaker 1: went didn't. But I contacted Ron, and Ron in the
Speaker 1: end came back and said that he was advising his
Speaker 1: not to do interviews.
Speaker 2: So Madison Ashton reveals to you guys what she would
Speaker 2: have said if she'd made it to the stand during
Speaker 2: the trial, but of course we know that she didn't
Speaker 2: because she was away in Europe during which what did
Speaker 2: she say to you guys? Do you reckon she would
Speaker 2: have said anything that would have really affected the case
Speaker 2: at all?
Speaker 3: Really hard for me to say.
Speaker 1: You know, I look, the one place that we never
Speaker 1: were and I would have loved have been is in
Speaker 1: the jury room. So I have no idea where the
Speaker 1: Madison's testimony would have changed the trial.
Speaker 3: You know, I just don't have any idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, if she had been in the trial, she
Speaker 1: would have been probably cross examined pretty intensely by Ron Mansfield,
Speaker 1: and you know, you've got no idea how that would
Speaker 1: have gone. And to be honest, I don't know whether
Speaker 1: it would have made a difference. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think she didn't have any sort of smoking gun evidence,
Speaker 1: So I don't know, is the short answer to that.
Speaker 3: And it's probably a long answer as well.
Speaker 2: Some people have seen that it's an Ashton, You're nothing
Speaker 2: but a gold diggate.
Speaker 3: Do you have to say to those people, are.
Speaker 1: You a no?
Speaker 5: No, only poor people say that I'm a gold digger.
Speaker 5: I've never ever met a man who has not wanted
Speaker 5: a woman for his money if he's moneyed. That's the
Speaker 5: whole point of men making money is to be wanted
Speaker 5: by a greater pool of women. Philip was just a
Speaker 5: nerd doctor on a on a good income.
Speaker 3: So you are you saying you earn like eight hundreds yet?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it and he worked for it and so did I.
Speaker 5: So yeah, so when it comes to the gold digger thing,
Speaker 5: it's just it's just poor people saying poor people's stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, and she's really a character. It's quite nice to
Speaker 2: see her in her full element, you know, showing off
Speaker 2: a glitzy shoe collection ten thousand dollars a shelf. She says,
Speaker 2: what was it like, kind of getting a glimpse into
Speaker 2: her life?
Speaker 3: I suppose, yeah, I mean it was fascinating and she
Speaker 3: was very open with us. And she is a real character.
Speaker 1: As you say, she works in an industry that I
Speaker 1: really don't know anything about, and so she kind of
Speaker 1: demystified a lot of that, and of course she just
Speaker 1: had a huge amount of information and background about Philip
Speaker 1: and her relationship and with Philip and the events that
Speaker 1: you know over years that preceded Pauline's death.
Speaker 3: So it was just it was fascinating.
Speaker 2: And I suppose that back and forth as well the
Speaker 2: videos during COVID that you get to see in the
Speaker 2: documentary between the two of them, and the fact that
Speaker 2: it does look like a loving relationship between Madison and Philip,
Speaker 2: whereas in the trial, because she wasn't there, it was
Speaker 2: kind of more of a client sex worker kind of relationship.
Speaker 2: But through the documentary and through what you guys put
Speaker 2: to the audience, it doesn't really seem like that was
Speaker 2: spoken about during the trial, the relationship part of it, right.
Speaker 1: Well, my impression of the defense's point of view was
Speaker 1: that they were trying to play down that that they
Speaker 1: were trying to portray Madison and Phillip's relationship as if
Speaker 1: it was simply professional as a sex worker and a client.
Speaker 3: I think when people see all that.
Speaker 1: All those video calls and those messages and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, you can see that in a different light.
Speaker 1: And I think that again I'm speaking from my impression
Speaker 1: of the prosecutions case was they were trying to establish
Speaker 1: that Philip did, you know, had a romantic relationship with Madison,
Speaker 1: and they wished to say that she might have been
Speaker 1: a motivation for him to wanting to leave Pauling. But
Speaker 1: certainly if you look at watching all those those interactions
Speaker 1: between Madison and Philip, there seems to be a lot
Speaker 1: of affection between the.
Speaker 3: Two of them.
Speaker 2: What do you make of Polkinghorn coming out and saying
Speaker 2: that it's tabloid click bait and that he was deceived
Speaker 2: by you guys.
Speaker 1: Ah, Look, we just showed his life and the events
Speaker 1: surrounding his life and lead up to that.
Speaker 3: You know, that's what his life was like. We're just
Speaker 3: telling it like it was.
Speaker 1: And now the rest of the media pick up on that,
Speaker 1: and the tabloids do, but we didn't. We just showed
Speaker 1: Philip's life as it was.
Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is that his life involved math, sex,
Speaker 2: sex workers, and lot of money.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, which is tabloid an amazing as everybody said that.
Speaker 1: You know, like in a lot of trials, there are
Speaker 1: one of those elements and in this one you sort
Speaker 1: of add all of them and it's sort of a
Speaker 1: kind of an amazing combination from the point of view
Speaker 1: of the media, they couldn't resist it, and to be fair,
Speaker 1: public interest was huge as well. And also I think
Speaker 1: it's not so often that you see a highly respected
Speaker 1: member of the establishment charged with murder, and so you
Speaker 1: know that often, you know, we see trials in the
Speaker 1: media and they don't often necessarily involve medical specialists in
Speaker 1: that situation.
Speaker 3: So I think that really captured people's interest as well.
Speaker 2: And now, which in grees netpol in rest and peace
Speaker 2: that is best if we can possibly give her baking.
Speaker 4: The case put a spotlight on Pulkinghorn's most personal affairs,
Speaker 4: revealing the remu Era eye surgeon as a meth user
Speaker 4: with a fondness for escorts, but a wife killer. A
Speaker 4: jury decided he was not.
Speaker 2: And I guess throughout this whole thing and how tabloidy
Speaker 2: it is, just in its general nature, people tend to
Speaker 2: think about Pauline Hannah. Pauline Hannah died that day, and
Speaker 2: I thought something you said stuck with me that we
Speaker 2: mustn't forget that this is about Pauline Hannah's life and
Speaker 2: the way that you edited the film and you really
Speaker 2: wanted to pay homage to her and her work and
Speaker 2: her life and her loved ones. Tell me a little
Speaker 2: bit about that process, kind of making sure that Pauline
Speaker 2: Hannah's memory was respected throughout.
Speaker 1: Yes, the trial and the case was in some respects
Speaker 1: quite bonkers, and it was easy to get caught up
Speaker 1: in that, but when you have to start condensing it,
Speaker 1: you do realize that, you know, you're aware that this
Speaker 1: is because a person's died. And we were really really
Speaker 1: conscious of that, and we had a meeting before we started,
Speaker 1: you know, that very first meeting you have when you
Speaker 1: before you start production, and we talked about that and
Speaker 1: we wanted to never lose sight of that because I
Speaker 1: think that in some true crime and I hate use
Speaker 1: that word, you know, true crime, but in some documentaries
Speaker 1: that involve people who have died or in murder trials,
Speaker 1: sometimes the dead person gets forgotten. And we didn't want
Speaker 1: to do that. We wanted to just, I don't know,
Speaker 1: remember her and that and so, as you said, it
Speaker 1: is it's deliberate that the first and the last images
Speaker 1: you see of Pauline, and we did also wish to
Speaker 1: be respectful of her family as well.
Speaker 2: Of course, all of those images of Pauline, I mean,
Speaker 2: they were really special, weren't they because you spoke to
Speaker 2: her brother Bruce for the documentary as well.
Speaker 1: Hey, yes, Interfeasant, Yeah and they and they were good
Speaker 1: enough to provide us with photos and some video of Pauline.
Speaker 1: For me, when I heard her speak in the Longlands tape,
Speaker 1: she really became real. You know, you see photos of
Speaker 1: someone and you kind of have an idea, but when
Speaker 1: you hear them speaking and their cadence, and she seemed
Speaker 1: like a really sharp, kind of lively woman and probably
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to meet and be around. I
Speaker 1: got a really lovely you know, for the first time,
Speaker 1: I got a real sense of her and that was great.
Speaker 2: What's the reaction been like to the series so far?
Speaker 1: It's been positive. I mean I'm getting loads and loads
Speaker 1: of texts and messages from people and we you know,
Speaker 1: with everybody, and the production team is getting those as well,
Speaker 1: and far more than I would normally ever get.
Speaker 3: So I think that it's been a really good reaction
Speaker 3: so far.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Mark, You're welcome. That's it for
Speaker 2: this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
Speaker 2: about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld dot
Speaker 2: co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan
Speaker 2: Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on
Speaker 2: Monday for another look behind the headlines.