Coroner's inquest paused as Philip Polkinghorne leaves court in tears

Retired Remuera eye surgeon and acquitted murder suspect Philip Polkinghorne left an Auckland courtroom in tears today as excerpts of his police interview were replayed for the coroner looking into the circumstances of wife Pauline Hanna’s death.

The outburst came as Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock paused her questioning of the first witness, Detective Inspector Chris Allen, to play the video clip.

“I don’t think it’s good he’s in the room if he’s going to be traumatised by the process,” Coroner Tania Tetitaha told Polkinghorne’s lawyer, Ron Mansfield, KC, as she called for a five-minute break.

When the hearing resumed, Polkinghorne remained outside with his sister.

“Is he okay?” the coroner asked Mansfield.

“He’s just very upset by it,” the lawyer replied. “It happened at times through trial. He will be fine outside.”

Polkinghorne, 73, openly wept a few times during his high-profile eight-week murder trial, which had just begun in the High Court at Auckland at this time two years ago. The last time was while jurors were deliberating and they asked to listen again to the 111 call he made on the morning of April 5, 2021, which began: “My wife’s dead!”

Jurors found him not guilty several days later.

McClintock also had the 111 call played in court today as she questioned the detective, who was second-in-charge of the investigation.

The coronial inquest that started this week in the Newmarket Hearing Centre is not considered a second trial for Polkinghorne, but it has been attended by many of the same people and is expected to include much of the same evidence.

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The goal of the hearing, expected to last two weeks, is for the coroner to “establish when and where Ms Hanna died and the cause and circumstances of her death”. Decisions in such cases are usually reserved, and Tetitaha may order additional hearings if she decides new areas of evidence need to be heard.

Philip Polkinghorne was interviewed by Detective Sergeant Ilona Watson on April 5 2021, the day his wife Pauline Hanna died.

Most of Allen’s testimony this morning and the excerpts that were played from the police interview cannot be reported because of a suppression order barring the media from stating or alluding to the manner in which Hanna died, if it was indeed a suicide as her widower claims.

None of the evidence this morning appeared to vary from what was presented to jurors two years ago. The hearing is, however, expected to take a new turn next week, when Polkinghorne and his sister are scheduled to give evidence for the first time, followed by a new pathologist - the fifth when including the four who gave evidence at the murder trial.

Polkinghorne was accused at his trial of having killed Hanna before staging the scene to look like a suicide. Much of the circumstantial case focused on what was described as Polkinghorne’s odd behaviour before and after Hanna’s death, including hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on sex workers and text exchanges with one sex worker in particular whom he fantasied about starting a new life with.

Prosecutors also focused on the surgeon’s methamphetamine use and played in full the police interview, in which he appeared manic at times as he listed grievances with his wife hours after her death.

In her opening remarks yesterday, McClintock still maintained that Hanna “died at the hands of another” but steered clear of some of the more salacious aspects of the trial, acknowledging the more limited scope of the coronial inquest.

Mansfield also didn’t go into details of the most salacious bits of the trial but suggested repeatedly to the coroner that police remained blinded by moral judgment regarding his lifestyle. He encouraged the coroner to put most weight on the assessments of the expert pathologists.

The defence has suggested that Hanna was depressed and stressed because of her important job distributing vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.An expert at the 2024 trial also noted that she had a dangerous mix of alcohol and unprescribed sleeping pill zopiclone in her system - a combination that could have loosened inhibitions and put her at a higher risk of suicide, the psychologist said.

The detective’s evidence is expected to continue this afternoon, followed by other police personnel who attended the scene inside the couple’s Remuera home.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.