Polkinghorne testifies for the first time: 'I was incoherent. I'd lost my wife'

Retired Auckland eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne, acquitted of murdering wife Pauline Hanna in 2021, recounted cradling his wife’s lifeless body in his arms as he testified for the first time today about the circumstances of her death.

“I was absolutely devastated, and I couldn’t think straight,” the widower said from the witness box at the ongoing coronial inquest into his wife’s death.

“I couldn’t get my phone to work. I mean, how pathetic was that? I was useless.”

He began to wipe at his eyes with a tissue, his voice quivering as he recounted the discovery.

“She was dead. She didn’t need a blanket. She didn’t need a pillow under her head. That’s what I did for her.”

Polkinghorne denied using methamphetamine the night before – or on the morning – his wife was found dead inside the foyer of their Remuera home.

“Had you used it in the preceding days?” his lawyer asked.

“No,” he replied firmly.

The ophthalmologist also acknowledged a sexual relationship with Australian sex worker Madison Ashton but insisted he didn’t speak with her on the day of his wife’s death – something Ashton disputes.

“I do not have any memory of speaking with Madison Ashton during that purported time,” he said.

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A jury in the High Court at Auckland acquitted Polkinghorne of murder in September 2024 after one of the nation’s highest-profile trials in recent history, but the verdict came with an asterisk of sorts.

A note issued to the judge before their verdict read: “Most of the people on the jury do not think there is enough evidence to support Pauline having committed suicide. However, some people on the jury do not think that the Crown has supplied enough evidence that we can answer ‘yes’ to the question, ‘Has the Crown made you sure that Dr Polkinghorne caused the death of his wife, Ms Pauline Hanna, by intentionally strangling her?’”.

The coronial inquest is not considered a second trial for Polkinghorne.

But it has been attended by many of the same people and much of the evidence heard over the past week in the Newmarket Hearing Centre has overlapped with Polkinghorne’s 2024 trial.

Acquitted murder defendant Philip Polkinghorne gives evidence at the coronial inquiry into the death of his wife, Pauline Hanna. Pool photo / Marika Khabazi / RNZ

The goal of the hearing is for Coroner Tania Tetitaha 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.

Polkinghorne was accused at his High Court 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 Ashton in which they fantasised about starting a new life together.

Prosecutors also focused on the surgeon’s methamphetamine use. He pleaded guilty to possession of the drug after police found 37g of it in his home, worth an estimated $13,000, but he tried to claim it was his wife’s at sentencing. The strategy backfired, with Justice Graham Lang stating the assertion wasn’t credible.

In her opening remarks last week, Crown Solicitor Alysha 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 limited scope of the coronial inquest.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, also didn’t go into details but suggested repeatedly to the coroner that police remained blinded by moral judgment regarding his client’s 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.

During today’s hearing, Polkinghorne said the zopiclone prescription had been his, used only when he was travelling and had jet lag. He was not aware his wife had been using the pills, he said.

“I had no idea her workload was so overwhelming,” he said, his voice quivering as he began his testimony by reading a prepared statement.

The night before, there had been “none whatsoever” of a disagreement with his wife as she helped him edit a resignation letter at Auckland Eye, he said.

He acknowledged that his phone had been put on airplane mode at 1.11am on the morning of his wife’s death, but he insisted it must have been the equivalent of a “butt dial”.

He also acknowledged continuing to use the phone through the early morning hours, using WhatsApp and accessing photos and videos, but he said today it was for work purposes. He was monitoring his overseas colleagues’ work and looking up photos of eyes as he prepared to publish a scholarly article, he said.

Such insomniac habits “continue to this day”, he said.

Polkinghorne reckoned he turned his phone off airplane mode as he tried to contact emergency services at 8.06am. He then called his sister and she agreed to go over to his house immediately, he said.

“I was incoherent,” he said. “I’d lost my wife. I was wailing.”

Acquitted murder defendant Philip Polkinghorne gives evidence at the coronial inquiry into the death of his wife, Pauline Hanna. Pool photo / Marika Khabazi / RNZ

He never strayed far from his wife’s body as he waited for first responders, he said, describing his demeanour as “devastated”.

“It was an event I hadn’t ever envisaged,” he added. “I was in a terrible state.”

Polkinghorne later had no concerns about accompanying police to the Auckland City station to be interviewed, he said. But his demeanour that day changed when a lawyer friend called him and told him his home was being treated as a crime scene, he told the coroner.

“I felt I’d been betrayed and they’d taken advantage of my vulnerability,” he said, acknowledging that he then deleted his iCloud storage and WhatsApp communications during a break in the interview.

“I wanted to delete anything that was what I considered inappropriate from my recent behaviour,” he said.

“I’m talking about my relationship with Madison Ashton. It was embarrassing and it was not, in my view, relevant to Pauline’s death. I wanted to keep it private.”

He explained that Ashton had sent him numerous photos of herself via the app.

“I had compromising material on it that I didn’t want anyone else to see,” he said.

While Polkinghorne spoke to police and later engaged with the media, today marked the first time he has been called to give evidence under oath. It was also the first time he has been subject to cross-examination by prosecutors.

As her questioning began, McClintock pointed to an interview Polkinghorne gave for a documentary in which he described elements of the scene differently than he would to authorities.

He acknowledged he might have described the positioning of furniture slightly differently but riled when the prosecutor suggested the discrepancy was because his wife died by homicide rather than suicide.

“That’s preposterous,” he said, later referring to the suggestion as “that pathetic hypothesis”.

Much of Polkinghorne’s testimony, and that of other witnesses, cannot be reported due to 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 husband claims.

Coroner Tetitaha also appeared intrigued by how the furniture had moved in different accounts from Polkinghorne.

“Why do you appear to be giving so many versions?” she asked.

Polkinghorne replied that he “didn’t appreciate the importance” of item placement as he gave the accounts.

“I should have ... placed more importance on that,” he said.

He and sister Ruth Hughes, who has sat by his side throughout the inquest, had petitioned the coroner to bar the media from filming their testimony – a request that NZME, Stuff, RNZ and TVNZ all opposed.

In a decision issued yesterday, the coroner declined Polkinghorne’s request but allowed a ban on filming Hughes when she gives testimony later in the hearing.

Polkinghorne is expected to continue giving evidence this afternoon as McClintock questions him.

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.

SUICIDE AND DEPRESSION

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