September 18, 2024 • 53 mins
Week Eight has the Crown and Defence issuing their closing statements.
First is the Crown, with Crown Prosecutor Alysha McClintock delivering it to the jury.
The Crown alleges that Philip Polkinghorne killed his wife, Pauline Hanna, on April 5 2021.
He maintains she took her own life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and from the team behind the
front page the New Zealand Herald's daily news podcast, This
is Accused the Polkinghorn trial. Over a series of weeks
in conjunction with our usual daily episodes, we'll be bringing
you regular coverage as one of the most high profile
trials of the year makes its way through the High
(00:30):
Court at Auckland. A warning, this podcast contains disturbing content.
The former auckland E surgeon is accused of murdering his wife,
Pauline Hannah, who was found dead on April fifth, twenty
twenty one. He maintains she took her own life.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
When the police walked up those steps at one two
won Puckland Road that morning from into the house of
doctor Polkinghorn and Pauline Hannah, they assumed that the man
who stood in front of them was the devastated husband
(01:14):
and that the woman laid out on the floor in
that position was.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
His wife, Pauling Hannah.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Victim a suicide. Pauling Hannah's death at first pass did.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Look like a suicide. It was meant to.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
The police going into that house, as they normally do,
looked around to assess the suicide. And they looked at
the supposed hanging mechanism.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
The rod.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Halfway up that valuestrade as you see in the photograph.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
So they did their job.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
They tested that rote, not expecting what happened next to
happen under minimal tension that rode fell the way to
the graph. It seemed that things were not adding up.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
That is how Crown Prosecutor Alicia McClintock began her closing
address of the crown's case. She said that police then
invited Polkinghorn back to the station. He may have thought
he could talk his way out or the police wanted
to rub a stamp Hannah's suicide. But he couldn't explain
that scene and he couldn't explain that rope. That's because
(02:51):
Hannah didn't hang herself, McClintock said.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The police decided to explore the possibility that doctor polk Horn,
renowned eye surgeon, man of wealth and standing, had killed
his wife and staged it as a suicide. Now only
you can decide if he did. He is highly intelligent.
(03:17):
He certainly sees himself as smart. There is an arrogance
and doctor Pulkinghorn, I suggest that you should not underestimate.
The crown case is that he has taken his wife's
life and he has blamed her for it. As he
(03:39):
blamed her in life, he blames her in death. This
case is binary. If it's not suicide, it's murder. Pauline
Hannah did not die by accident. She did not die
by disease. She did not die by mistake. If it
(04:01):
isn't suicide, it's murder.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Hannah had a number of suicide risk factors, but there
was no evidence she was suicidal on the night of
April fourth. McLintock said this case is not determined on
suicide risk factors or probabilities, but on the evidence of
those who saw, knew, and loved Pauline Hannah. Her own
voice in the Longlands recording and in her own letters.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
She was not a woman who had given up.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
She was a woman whose husband was giving up on her.
She was in the way of doctor Polkinghorn's life with
the intoxicating medicine eshed it no doubt, fueled by the
impacts of methamphetamine.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
McClintock says she will start with Polkinghorn's conduct after his
wife's supposed death by suicide. This evidence clearly portrays a
man that doesn't fit with a man devastated by his
wife's suicide. The prosecutor said, Firstly, he erased evidence. Secondly,
he secretly tried to access whether he had left a
(05:12):
clue on his wife's dead body. Thirdly, he started to
try and manipulate those who knew Hannah and tried to
paint her as suicidal.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
McClintock says, before you, he's gone one step further and
manipulated the evidence placed before you. He's faked a blood
result to try and make it look like his blood
is on the step at that address two years later
(05:45):
when it wasn't there in April twenty twenty one. We
are dealing humors of the jury with a very unusual
case and a very complex defendant.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
He is an.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
A man with high levels of intelligence and self assurance.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
He appeared to be living a very comfortable life and
renewer with his wife of twenty years, Pauline Hannah. He
was a renowned professional.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He was all of those things, it seem, but he
was also living another life which you've heard about. He
was living in another world, a world centered around medicine,
Ashton and their relationship which at least in his mind,
was his future.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
McClintock said there was secret financial support for a number
of sex workers and a problematic methamphetamine habit, and those
two lives collided on April fourth, twenty twenty one. McLintock
thanks the jury for listening to the morass of circumstantial
evidence in the case and said it's her job to
(06:57):
fit together the parts of the evidence that can be
used to prove Polkinghorn killed his wife. Once the Crown's
done that, she said, you can be sure that suicide
can be excluded. On pathology, McClintock said the true positive
findings here are very limited and not decisive, nor need
(07:17):
they be. She said. The findings establish the cause of
death as neck compression and not much more, but it
is speculative to use the absence of other injury to
support suicide. Defense pathologist doctor Stephen Cordner used the lack
of injury to support the suicide theory, but he did
not have all the evidence, said McClintock, such as the
(07:40):
scene evidence or the prior strangulation evidence as alleged by
family friends. The reardons all the evidence as to what
Polkinghorn did before and after Hannah's death. The crown doesn't
have to prove everything you have heard in the case,
the prosecutor told the jury, but to convict they must
feel sure on the evidence that they've heard that Polkinghorn
(08:02):
killed Hannah and he either intended it or he did
it recklessly. McClintock moved on to Polkinghorn's actions after Hannah's death.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
He was largely calm with the police and first responders,
and not so. We hadn't talking on the phone to
family members and others about what has happened. He was
described as wailing and as devastated.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
He called himself devastated. Now it is very true, and
I don't suggest.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Otherwise that people grieve differently and there's no one way
to react.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I'm not suggesting that there is is.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Doctor Hettrick said, you look, shock can do strange things
to people. But remember what he's telling us in the days,
weeks and months that follow her death is that he's devastated, devastated.
He says, you are right members of the jury to
stress hist his claim of devastation.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
McClintock said that his priority, having made some calls about
his wife's death, was to delete his WhatsApp messages, including
his entire conversation history with Madison Ashton dating back to
twenty seventeen. During the police interview, Polkinghorn left the room
for a break at four twenty eight pm. McLintock said
(09:25):
when Detective Andrew Reeves examined the doctor's phone later, he
found no WhatsApp messages before April fifth, at about four
thirty pm. None of his messaging before then is available,
but we know they'd been in regular contact before that,
and a further review of his phone found he used
it multiple times overnight between April fourth and fifth, when
(09:48):
he told police he was asleep. Earlier messages were found
on Ashton's phone from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one,
but the contents of those messages have been scrambled together.
Mclintock's said that's not a coincidence.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It's not a coincidence that all of the messages prior
to five April had gone off doctor Polkinghorn's phone and scrambled.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
On Madison Ashton's.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I suggest, wouldn't you like to know what was being
said between those two in those earlier messages, But you
don't because doctor Polkinghorn has manipulated the evidence and deleted them.
The clear and obvious and I would say only inference
(10:39):
as to why he did this at that point in
time at the police station is because they contained messages
demonstrating that he was not the devastated husband at all.
If this was an open relationship that he had with
(11:00):
medicine Esh, mister Mansfield urges upon you, then what's the problem.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
There are also deleted searches, such as how to delete
iCloud storage, which Polkinhorn searched the afternoon of April fifth
after leaving the police station.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The next search that he does and deletes is hugely significant,
and it comes on the sixth of April, and it's
on page eighty of Exhibit twenty.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
This search unmasks the murderer.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I suggest leg ademer after strangulation.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
After strangulation.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Strangulation is an entirely different Woo took. In this context,
it conveys murder rather than conveying suicide.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
The one and only explanation is he's trying to check
if he had left behind a clue. McClintock said he
understands the working of the body and was worried that
he'd left a trace. As it turned out he hadn't.
There isn't an innocent explanation for the fact he searched
it on Duck Duck go and encrypted web browser. McClintock said.
(12:33):
She then moved on to Polkinghorn's holiday with Madison Ashton
the month of his wife's death. It's very telling, she
said that just three weeks after the loss of his
wife to a supposed suicide, he was off on a
holiday to a remote part of the country with Ashton.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Either he and his devastation just happened to have found
comfort in the arms of medicine Ashton in the South Island,
or this is what he wanted when.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
He decided, either that his wife was of the way and.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
He strangled her or what whether he did that more
spontaneously during an argument. Could be either of those things.
And I'll come back to this, but this is the
life he wanted.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And there he is. The end of the month with
Madisone Ashton.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
From April seventh, twenty twenty one, Polkinghorn was contacting Madison
Ashton with limited references to Hannah and her death. McLintock
turned to what she said with Polkinghorn's attempts to manipulate witnesses.
He went around to his friend Paul Adrians's house and
encouraged him not to speak to police. Then there's Alison Ring,
(13:47):
Hannah's good friend, she said. Polkinghorn went around to her
house and started speaking ill of his wife, and also
procured a suicide note he said he'd found in Hannah's bedding.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He knew, as Allison Ring told you, Pauline Hannah always
left nut for everything. He knew questions were being asked
about why she hadn't.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Left a note here.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
He is trying to manipulate Allison Rome. And as she
told you, that's exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
How she saw it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I felt I had been manipulated by him.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
That's what she.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Told you, McLintock said. Polkinghorn's deception got worse. She alleged
he planted blood in his house to explain away the
wound to his forehead that he could not explain at
his first interview. She said that while this sounds shocking,
the evidence tells us this. As ESR forensic scientist Fiona
(14:51):
Matheson examined the house thoroughly for blood and did not
find any on the steps leading up from the entrance
way to the small landing. She did find a red
brown mark on those steps, but said multiple times she'd
screened that area for blood and did not take a
sample because it didn't look like blood and was not blunt.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Two years later, along comes Dr Pulkinghorn to interfere in
all of that.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Doctor Scanlon is asked to visit his house at the
request of the defense.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Prior to arriving in New Zealand, he's been told there's
a blood stain on the side of the stairs. His
attention when he gets there is specifically drawn to that area,
but then it looked different. The one on the left
is what Fiona Mathieson looked at and said, I know
(15:45):
as a forensics shidist that is not blood, so I
didn't swab it. But in any event, she luminold the
entire area. The only blood stain that came up the
luminold testing was back over by the door. You'll remember
that two years later. The one on the right is
there when Doctor Scanlon turns out and he's directed to
(16:08):
it by whom.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Doctor Polk.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
There were visual signs of contamination. The mark is in
the same place, but the size and shape are very different.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I suggest too, and there just isn't any way of
being polite about it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Doctor Polhan's that there.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
He knows he hasn't explained that mark on his head
an interview. He knows where that mark on his head
really came from from his wife.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
If you accept his covering things up, that's circumstantial evidence
you can legitimately use to infer his guilt to McClintock said.
For coverage of other news events in New Zealand, listen
to the front page The Herald's daily news podcast wherever
(16:58):
you get your podcasts. McClintock then moved on to part
two of her address, Pauline Hannah herself. McClintock said Hannah
had her challenges, but was not suicidal that night, saying
that Hannah had been painted as a bit of a
stress cadet who drank too much and was obsessed with
(17:19):
her appearance by her husband. McClintock pointed instead to Hannah
being a beautiful, successful woman in her early sixties. She
loved her family and treated Polkinghorn's children as her own.
She could suffer a crisis of confidence from time to time,
especially in her work during the COVID pandemic, but she
(17:39):
was flourishing in her job at the time of her
death and looking forward to the opening of a new
vaccination center. McLintock urged the jury not to pay attention
to individual emails, such as one Hannah wrote that included
the line my life is insane. She said people are
complex and words on a page don't always convey well
(18:01):
what sets behind them, especially in isolation. She said that
no one had seen anything to suggest she was on
the brink, and.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
To have her actions in going to the tip and
taking dinner to people can be sort of cast as
potential suicide indicators. Well, that confused even Doctormenki's who said,
that's a bit confusing to say that's an indicator of something.
It seems desperate to be frank to look to that
(18:33):
to suggest she was suicidal. People go to the tip
on long weekends and one of the reasons for that
is they want to go to the tip and throw.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Some things out. It doesn't have to be a mental
health issue.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
McClintock said Hannah was sad but philosophical about her mother's
death and had come to terms with it. Hannah was
also on prozac for twenty years and took a standard dose.
Her GP had said she was well maintained on that
medicine and stable. McClintock said, she's not suggesting the medications
she was on can't have a negative effect. The question
(19:09):
is did it. She had been on her medications for
a decade or more, and the evidence is the jurymine
a weight loss drug seemed to be helping her state
of mind. McClintock said Hannah had sought help to reduce
her alcohol intake in the years before her death, but
it seemed that Polkinghorn would taunt her with it at times.
(19:29):
Her blood alcohol limit at the time of death was
below the legal limit. McClintock says Hannah did not attempt
suicide between nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety two, as alleged
by her sister Tracy Hannah in evidence.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Pauline Hannah's medical records were traversed over hours of cross examination.
There is no medical evidence to support what Tracy Hann said.
Here were no marks on her list at all. Topsy
It is not something this supposed.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Attempt that anyone who was truly closed to.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Pauline Hannah was told on Tracy Hannah's own evidence. This
was both a great shocking piece of information, and yet
she also told you she kept it buried in the
recesses of her memory for something close to thirty years.
I can't explain Tracy Hannah's motivation to say what she
(20:30):
did about Pauline Hannah, and I need not prove the
crowd need not prove why she did. But I suggest
you can safely put that evidence from her to one side.
Whether it's driven by jealousy of Pauline, by some sort
of odd fascination with doctor Paulkinghorn, by a wish to
(20:54):
be a center of attention, who knows, but I suggested
it is unsafe to rely upon.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It is clear she had suicidal thoughts in twenty nineteen.
The call to the crisis team shows her mother was
in hospital and her husband had abandoned her at Christmas.
Her thoughts, though, were not of hanging, they were of
driving into a lorry, and she didn't get past those
invasive thoughts, saying she was too scared and loved her family.
(21:23):
McClintock says she suggested a comment Hannah made about chucking
herself off a bridge in the long Lands recording was
not serious. Hannah had significant protective factors in her life,
namely her family, so it's important to look at what
she did when she had those invasive thoughts like reaching
out to her GP. But she was also married to
(21:47):
the complex personality of Polkinghorn. He was both her great
love and her greatest vulnerability. McClintock said it was a.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Husband who she joined for sexual experiences with others to
please him, and the last evidence of that is in
twenty sixteen. Consistent with that, she describes group sex and
the Longlands recording as something she used to do. He
was the husband who she called an angry, angry man
(22:16):
in that Longlands recording when things didn't go his way.
The husband who knew she knew would have sex with
sex workers in Sydney, but who she didn't want doing
so on her patch, and she said that she was
clear about that. The husband who expected sex from her
every day and.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Would go into her bedroom demanding it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
McClintock said Polkinghorn was a husband who criticized her, blamed her,
told her not to wear body suits, and picked at
her about benign things. This was seen by her friend
John read In and there's evidence of Hannah drafting three
versions of the pleading letter she was to SND in
reply to her husband.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
He was the husband who had strangled her and threatened
her that he could do it anytime. He was the husband, though,
that she loved despite all of it. The crowd does
not and has not, contested that she loved him.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
It's clear that she loved him for all as many.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Facts, she loved him. She loved him dearly. She kept
trying to better herself to make him happy. The great
tragedy of all of those is that her love for
doctor Polkinghorn ultimately cost her her life.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
But as it happened in his hand, not at her.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
There were eleven witnesses who all said, as far as
they were concerned, Hannah was fulfilled and had purpose through
her work and her grandchildren. It's only after death that
Polkinghorn started to talk about her dress, McClintock said. And
while there's a note in only a third or a
quarter of cases, McClintock said, the evidence shows Hannah left
(24:09):
notes about everything. Her pattern was to reach out and
write down. If she was in pain, she would write
to herself or write to family to just get it out.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Because her pattern was to reach out and write down
she was in pain, that's what she would do.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
She spoke about her pain when she was in pain,
even to herself, emailed herself.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
She got it out, including when she was feeling low
April twenty twenty email to herself May twenty twenty email
to family about being bullied.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
She wrote it down, She got it out.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
She wrote her feelings down all the time, or contacted
people and spoke to them about it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
And yet she heeled herself and left no note. And
I simply say for her, that.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Doesn't Hannah searched for things all the time, but there's
no evidence she researched suicide methods before her death, which
suggests that she had to know how to take her
own life and the way the defense is alleged. Plus,
why would she have chosen to hang herself when there
were a number of drugs in the house she could
have taken instead, McClintock asked. And then there's the location
(25:22):
of where her alleged hanging took place.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
This is in the.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Front doorway, in the most public part of the house,
where she will be seen by whoever enters that doorway. Immediately,
which she could have been saved from Darwin life. The
door's class, as was its panel beside the door, does
it jel Given everything you know about who, how consumed
(25:47):
she was about appearance, about.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Others, who would find who? There?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Statistics don't tell you the answer with this, Well would she.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Do in what stated? Because she's naked.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
But for that dressing gown in the most public part
of the house, naked under a loose dressing gow, this
hugely proud, immaculate woman impulsively decided to leave this world
pretty much naked.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
McClintock then talked about what may have happened after Hannah
sent an email to Polkinghorn at ten forty six pm,
the last piece of written communications she made. We know
that she plugged her phone in at some point. Then,
if you followed the suicide narrative, Hannah got up at
some point in the night despite the high levels of
(26:48):
zoppoclone in her system, but she didn't touch her phone
or her laptop. She also didn't go to the toilet,
despite having a full bladder when she died. Instead, she
made a mess of a room, stripped just the top
sheet off the bed, and took off the pillowcases, which
appeared to have vanished. Hannah then went naked apart from
her robe to get the rope, but we don't know
(27:10):
exactly where from if it's still in the ute. She
went outside, full bladder in her robe, hair and makeup,
undone across the street to get it. Polking Horn had
said he'd sealed the ends of the rope the day before,
but the rope had been cut between the sealed ends,
so continuing that narrative, Hannah would have had to cut
(27:34):
the rope but then hidden the cutting implement in her
disinhibited state. She then would have had to truss one
bit of rope to the balustrade without any search on
her phone and laptop before moving a chair into the
hallway or without noise or lights. She also fetched a
leather belt to attach to the rope, despite her robe
(27:55):
having a belt. She would have done all of this
without being noticed by polkinghorn On, who we know was
using his laptop until around two forty four am. The
rope used was also unnecessarily long and from a needlessly
high point in the house, and did not have enough
tension when found by police. McClintock said on pathology. McLintock
(28:18):
said that it only takes us so far. The Crown
pathologists ruled that Hannah died of net compression. The defense
pathologists said they would expect Hannah to have suffered many
more injuries if she'd been strangled, but McClintock said the
pathologists acknowledged the minority of cases where there are no
or limited injuries are where there's a good reason, such
(28:42):
as a self sedated victim or an assailant who knows
what they're doing. McClintock said, various injuries on Hannah's body,
to her nose, her temple, her arms weren't present on
April fourth.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It really just a.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Case of stopping, I suggested, thinking logically about the life,
because no matter how much you'll urge to discard all
of these injuries because of the view that there should
have been more, which I'll come to, it's actually much
more straightforward and you just stop and think about it,
because what are the chances that she has both become
(29:18):
suicidal and had this bumpy old time that's injured her
in all of these different.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Ways, And there's a fourth injury, an abrasion to her
back that McClintock says, is a bit more equivocal. It's
the only injury the two Crown pathologists both said could
have been made after death. You need to consider all
the injuries together, McClintock said, again, the answers here lie
(29:45):
outside the pathology. Hannah had no evident injuries on April fourth,
but here she is dead on April fifth with those injuries.
McClintock then moved on to the evidence supporting Hannah being
of victim of murder.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
The single most significant piece of evidence in this trial,
I suggest, is that doctor Pulpinghorn had tried to strangle
Pauline Hannah before she told her best friends the Reddins
about it in January twenty twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
January twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
She was dead from net compression within thirteen months of
that disclosure. That she told her friends that he had
done that. That's one of the few pieces of evidence
that's not been contested before you.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
So she did tell him that.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
There was a challenge to the Reddin's memory around what
she said in the Leader and after and whether it
was spoken of her gig, but there was no challenge
none to the fact that she said that he had
done it, and to the fact that she demonstrated that he.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Had done it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Pheasant Readon said, Hannah became agitated and described that Polkinghorn
had done this to her before the witness gestured with
her hands to her throat. McClintock said, Pheasant's husband, John Ridon, said,
during a dinner in twenty twenty, what she was telling
them became more and more serious before she placed her
(31:38):
hands on her throat. After this, she said nothing for
maybe five seconds, Riddon said, before saying he tried to
strangle me. When Hannah had defended Polkinghorn multiple times in
the past, why would she have lied about this as
the defense suggested, McClintock asked. Doctor Christopher Milroy, one of
(31:58):
the defense pathologists, acknowledged that while rare, it was possible
to strangle someone without leaving significant injuries.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Non fatal strangulation common feature of violence against women, a
key marker for the escalation of domestic violence. Dr Molroy
accepted that said, almost all of the strangulation cases he
has dealt with clinically involved a male perpetrator and a
female victim, so this is something just to be set
(32:29):
against all of this talk of suicide risk factors and
suicide indicators that the experts spoke of at length. Indicators
don't decide cases. You know, the facts decide cases. But
if we're going to get into looking at suicide indicators,
you have to look at this tone.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
She told the jury they should look at Polkinghorn's behavior,
and I told one friend Philip has become beastly, that
he was an angry man. She warned her niece not
to stay with them over Chris and asked her step
children not to repeat things back to him. Back to
Hannah's injuries, McClintock said, they are not nonspecific when viewed
(33:10):
through a lens of control and aggression.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Either she's been surprised in the ensuing struggle, she's been
struck and punched and gripped and strangled, or what there's
an argument during which she's been struck and punched and
(33:40):
gripped and strangle. You don't need to prove which there
isn't a camera in that role. This is about connecting
everything together, so it's really important not to get trapped
into isolating bits of evidence.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
The crown doesn't have to prove what type of strangulation
was used, McClintock said. In a criminal trial, the exact
mechanism of death does not need to be proven, but
you do need to be sure the neck compression was
caused by Polkinghorn and not Hannah hanging herself she told
the jury. McClintock said that the jury should also remember
(34:23):
that Polkinghorn is a doctor and would have been avoiding
making it look like he killed his wife. The Crown
must prove two things that Polkinghorn killed Hannah, and at
the time he did that he either intended to kill
her or was reckless as to whether his actions would
kill her. While the Crown does not need to prove motive,
(34:46):
it's helpful to look at what was going on in
their relationship. The evidence shows that Hannah knew Polkinghorn had
sex with prostitutes, and she may have joined in in
years past to please him, but she didn't enjoy it
and wasn't happy about his infidelity, and there is no
evidence of it being an open relationship. In April twenty
(35:09):
twenty one, it's unclear why he didn't leave her, and
the reasons could have been anything from arrogance to appearances
to money. McClintock said, while Hannah was scared, he had
a big shot lawyers on his side, and that she
wouldn't have any money in her name anymore if she
left him. There were also concerns about finances, to the
(35:30):
point that Hannah opened a personal loan account right on
the cusp of her death. McClintock said, we must add
to all of this that Hannah was a woman whose
husband was on math.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
He's preoccupied.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's some level with each of these things as well
other women, money, meth.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
The real problem in his mind that supports this is why.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So whether he decided to end it having watched videos
that night for Madison, Ashton smoked myth and surprised his wife.
Whether they argued and he strangled her during that both.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Are available.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Alsia McClintock turned to Polkingcorn's life in the eighteen months
before his wife's death.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
There's three aspects to who he had become on the
night of four April. His behavior had changed. He had
become increasingly angry and agitated. That might tie to his
use of myth fetomene.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
He's obsessed with medicine Ashton. He thinks he's setting up
a life with her. It's clear in his.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Messages that that's what he thinks. He's hemorrhaging money and
money was an issue he's preoccupied with. So again, any
one or more of these support the inference the logical
(37:14):
conclusion that these two argued about something at night, or
these issues boiled over for doctor Pulkinghorn that night and
his decision to strangle his wife.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Many people picked up on the fact he was acting differently,
including being more irritable at work and disclosing his meth
us to colleagues. At the same time, He's going through
the cash and has been controlling of and abusive too
his wife, and had an ever developing relationship with the
Madison Ashton. The suggestion he's not responsible for the meth
(37:49):
in the toilet adjoining Hannah's room is just silly, McClintock said.
Polkinghorn had also tried to blame the meth pipe found
at auckland I on others. Unusual behavior and aggression are
symptoms of meth use, as we heard from an expert witness,
doctor Emma Schwartz, and it is also associated with an
(38:10):
increased libido. Hannah had complained to friends about him wanting
sex every day, calling him a sex fiend. Schwartz also
testified that meth use is associated with an increased risk
of violence.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Being an older, wealthy, privileged man does not make him.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I muse on the effect of.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
On to Madison Ashton, McClintock said that Polkinghorn is emotionally
and financially fully invested in Ashton at the time of
Hannah's death. It doesn't matter what Ashton's true intentions were
or whether she was genuine or not genuine. McClintock says,
it's about what he thought and what he wanted.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
This dream life that he had Madison Ashton could.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Not be reconciled with the life he had at home
with Pauline Hannah.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Cracks were starting to show She's.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Worried, Pauling Hannah's worried. She's being worried throughout twenty twenty.
You know that something's got to get and the tensions
between these two and the collision of these two worlds.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Evidence shows he was a man spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars on sex workers and drugs to try and
keep his second life away from Hannah.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
When you draw that together, there's one person in this marriage,
Miss Hannah, who actually had her life pretty together at
this point despite her struggles, but she was busy.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
She had struggles with her husband, but she's busy and
pretty together despite all of it. She turns up dead
under a sheet the bottom of the stairs, totally out
of the blue and a shock to all of those
close to her.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Onto the night itself, McClintock said that Polkinghorn lied to
police about going to bed at ten pm on April fourth,
with data showing his phone active after that, including him
putting it on airplane mode between one eleven am and
eight oh six am. He still used his phone during
that time. There is photo and video app usage through
(40:24):
to eight oh five am, two minutes before he calls
one one one.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
He is active for much of this night. And the
point is he had plenty of time to kill her.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Whether it's between eleven sixteen and one team one window
two forty four and six forty six another one now,
no one can say.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
The point is is clenty.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Of time and either of those windows, plenty of time
to get himself in a state about Madison Aston message
her or her message him, plenty of time have a
toot on his meth pipe, plenty of time to either
(41:16):
surprise his.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Wife in her bedroom or argue with her and strangle
her there somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Don't have to be sure about where upstairs bedroom does
seem the most likely place. Plenty of time for his
wife to at least leave one.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Mark on him as she tried to fight back that
cut to his head.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
That cut he simply couldn't and didn't explain in either
his first written statement to the police or his police interview.
Noticed by all the first responders.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Are photos sent to Madison Ashton on April fourth shows
Polkinghorn didn't have a mark then, and there's also meth
traces in Hannah's toilet that puts him in the room
and he doesn't want that. McClintock said, he knows what
happened when he went in then he killed his what.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
He desperately doesn't want to be put in that room.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
On his own account, polking Horn was going to the
gym twice a week with personal trainer Barry Payne. McClintock
said he could have carried Hannah down the stairs. There's
also an important detail suggesting she was brought down the
stairs she's covered in a sheet when first responders arrive,
(42:46):
and a sheet is also missing from the bed where
she slept. The sheet was on top of her under
the duvet. No sheet was mentioned in the interview. McClintock
said Polking had ample time to stage the scene as
a hanging and would not have used surgical knots as
(43:07):
the defense suggested. McClintock said, we must prove Pauline Hannah
was killed by him and with murderous intent.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
That's what we must prove every nuance in the evidence.
We need not prove he had.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Time to do all of the things I've gone through.
But at the same time, as I referred to yesterday, there.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Was a time limit on him here. There was a
pt session booked.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
In with Barry at nine am that morning. Pauline had
arranged to go first. She had a work meeting as
well afterwards, so he knows alarm bells are going to
be ringing if she is not with Barry at nine am.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
He had also been so active that night he never
plugged his phone in. McClintock said, by comparison, Hannah's phone
was not used after ten seven pm on April fourth,
and the defense's suggestion that she drafted two messages overnight
are a complete red herring. In comparison, Polkinghorn's phone was
(44:14):
active throughout the night.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Something has happened between them that night. Whether he is high,
low strung out on meth, we can't know which.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
But the drug does its.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Effects continued after the period of intoxication.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Doctor Schwartz told you that, so.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Its ability to play a role in aggression and behavior
remains regardless of its precisely when he may have taken it.
In simple terms, his wife has died on a night
when it is clear he is awake much of that night,
and he has inexplicably hit his phone on airplane mind
(45:00):
and he has had time to do all of these things.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
There was a time limit, and Polkinghorn did not tidy
the upstairs room or flush the toilet. McClintock said he
did not expect the police to go all through his
house over an eleven day scene examination. Onto Polkinghorn's interview,
to do.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You think there's an interview was unusual, weird even I'm
not seeking and saying that to promote the idea that
there's one way to behave or one way to grief,
But it's an incredible mixture self centeredness, jokingess, relaxed presentation,
(45:46):
and mixed at times with an almost episode of what
appears on.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Its face to be acting.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
It breaks down in grief and then bounces back and
starts talking again.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
McClintock said the interview is three hours of Polkinghorn trying
to distract from the scene. But when his pinned down
on the fact the rope is tied halfway up that balustrade,
his demeanor changed.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
His willingness to talk changes at that point in time
when he realizes this photograph that's been pointed out to him,
what he's been saying doesn't seem to be right.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Everything changes. He's been called out.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So I suggest that much of that interview is a
complete deflection from the truth.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
McClintock then returned to the scene and said she left
it last deliberately to help the jury understand Polkinghorn's willingness
to manipulate people and evidence.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
The interview was a deflection because the scene that those
first responders went to that morning was a deception. Pauline
Hannah had not committed suicide, and the scene the police
were looking at and that's why it didn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
If she had, it should have.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Been obvious that she had, but it wasn't obvious. You've
got police forensic scientists combing through it, struggling to make
sense of it because it didn't make sense. Police officers
who were there Sadly, they attend suicide scenes and took
(47:33):
one look at that right satan i over said they
loved odd so.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
He tested it. We know whatever, it didn't stack up.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
The very first piece of evidence the jury heard, the
one one one call was at eight o seven am
when Polkinghorn said he'd found his wife. McClintock said that
from the point the operator told Polkinghorn to cut Hannah down,
he would have had to remove her from the chair
she was sitting on and undo the ropes and belts
(48:05):
and then lay her down on the ground and then
check if she was breathing.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
That's a lot to do, especially when he says he's
in shop. Well he would be if she committed suicide.
But that's a lot to do. Yet he managed to
do it all and about ten seconds.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Polkinghorn was also told to leave everything as you have
found it, but by the time paramedics got there, everything
used to facilitate her death on the supposed suicide narrative
had been moved. McClintock said. The crown case is that
the scene was staged. An unexplained piece of rope was
(48:47):
on the stairs towards the garage, untoasted bread was in
the toaster. Polkinghorn took the belt, wrapped it around in
his hands, put it in the kitchen. There's also blood
between her left to index and middle fingers, but no
injury to her fingers, which McClintock says doesn't make sense
(49:07):
to have come from the bleeding in Hannah's ear. She
said that Polkinghorn couldn't explain the rope, such as why
there was such a long tail where it was tied,
and why there was a piece on the lower stairs.
Why did Polkinghorn loosen the rope at the top of
the balustrade. He told police it looked awful hanging there,
(49:30):
but when police arrived it was still hanging. He didn't
expect to be interrogated like he was, the prosecutor said,
and his explanations around the ropes don't add up. As
for Hannah's room upstairs, where Hannah slept the night before
McLintock said, it doesn't make sense for Hannah to have
gone to bed with her room in the state it
(49:51):
was in. The breakfast scene in the kitchen was a facade,
she said, and there is an odd collection of items
in the washing machine, including an acrylic toenail math traces
and the toilet placed polkinghorn in Hannah's bad room.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
So bringing all of that together, nothing is in place
that there's this scene that should have been in place if.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
It was the suicide.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
You can't treat this scene as having any sort of validity.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
It's been wholly interfed with police.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Spent eleven days there because it had no integrity trying
to find out.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
What was going on.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
It's a big house as well, a lot of rooms.
They're doing their jobs, they're being thorough. They're trying to
understand why this is said to be a suicide, and
yet everything.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
About it is out of kilter.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
They're trying to figure out what happened because the disease
husband couldn't give them any meaningful insight into what happened.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
In their house.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
McClintock said, there's no one way for the jury to
approach this, but she asks them to put aside sympathy
and prejudice and analyze the critical issue. Has the Crown
proven to you that this was murder? She said that
the evidence is there from the prior strangulation evidence thirteen
(51:21):
months prior to the faked blood to his duck duck
go search, as well as the tensions in their marriage
and Polkinghorn's growing attachment to Madison Ashton.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
He had the intelligence to do it, He had the arrogance,
the drivers, the.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Myth fuelled current.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
His relationship with Pauline Henner was done. He had detached
from that life. He blamed Pauline Hanner in life for
a lot see it me, Lisa, He wrote her. It
is the final insult to her to blame her for
(52:06):
her own death. I suggest, members of the jury that
the evidence that you have heard proves the life that
doctor Polkinghorn told when he rut one one one and
said that she had home himself. I suggest you can
safely be sure on this evidence that he's guilty of murder.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
You can listen to episodes of Accused the Polkinghorn Trial
through the Front Page podcast feed or find it on
iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. This series is
presented and produced by me Chelsea Daniels, with producer Ethan
Seles and sound engineer Patti Fox. Additional production support by
(52:54):
Helen King. Additional reporting from The Heralds Craig Capitan and
George Block, and for more coverage of the Polkinghorn Trial
head to nsidherld dot co dot nz
Hilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and from the team behind the
front page the New Zealand Herald's daily news podcast, This
is Accused the Polkinghorn trial. Over a series of weeks
in conjunction with our usual daily episodes, we'll be bringing
you regular coverage as one of the most high profile
trials of the year makes its way through the High
(00:30):
Court at Auckland. A warning, this podcast contains disturbing content.
The former auckland E surgeon is accused of murdering his wife,
Pauline Hannah, who was found dead on April fifth, twenty
twenty one. He maintains she took her own life.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
When the police walked up those steps at one two
won Puckland Road that morning from into the house of
doctor Polkinghorn and Pauline Hannah, they assumed that the man
who stood in front of them was the devastated husband
(01:14):
and that the woman laid out on the floor in
that position was.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
His wife, Pauling Hannah.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Victim a suicide. Pauling Hannah's death at first pass did.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Look like a suicide. It was meant to.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
The police going into that house, as they normally do,
looked around to assess the suicide. And they looked at
the supposed hanging mechanism.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
The rod.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Halfway up that valuestrade as you see in the photograph.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
So they did their job.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
They tested that rote, not expecting what happened next to
happen under minimal tension that rode fell the way to
the graph. It seemed that things were not adding up.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
That is how Crown Prosecutor Alicia McClintock began her closing
address of the crown's case. She said that police then
invited Polkinghorn back to the station. He may have thought
he could talk his way out or the police wanted
to rub a stamp Hannah's suicide. But he couldn't explain
that scene and he couldn't explain that rope. That's because
(02:51):
Hannah didn't hang herself, McClintock said.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
The police decided to explore the possibility that doctor polk Horn,
renowned eye surgeon, man of wealth and standing, had killed
his wife and staged it as a suicide. Now only
you can decide if he did. He is highly intelligent.
(03:17):
He certainly sees himself as smart. There is an arrogance
and doctor Pulkinghorn, I suggest that you should not underestimate.
The crown case is that he has taken his wife's
life and he has blamed her for it. As he
(03:39):
blamed her in life, he blames her in death. This
case is binary. If it's not suicide, it's murder. Pauline
Hannah did not die by accident. She did not die
by disease. She did not die by mistake. If it
(04:01):
isn't suicide, it's murder.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Hannah had a number of suicide risk factors, but there
was no evidence she was suicidal on the night of
April fourth. McLintock said this case is not determined on
suicide risk factors or probabilities, but on the evidence of
those who saw, knew, and loved Pauline Hannah. Her own
voice in the Longlands recording and in her own letters.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
She was not a woman who had given up.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
She was a woman whose husband was giving up on her.
She was in the way of doctor Polkinghorn's life with
the intoxicating medicine eshed it no doubt, fueled by the
impacts of methamphetamine.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
McClintock says she will start with Polkinghorn's conduct after his
wife's supposed death by suicide. This evidence clearly portrays a
man that doesn't fit with a man devastated by his
wife's suicide. The prosecutor said, Firstly, he erased evidence. Secondly,
he secretly tried to access whether he had left a
(05:12):
clue on his wife's dead body. Thirdly, he started to
try and manipulate those who knew Hannah and tried to
paint her as suicidal.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
McClintock says, before you, he's gone one step further and
manipulated the evidence placed before you. He's faked a blood
result to try and make it look like his blood
is on the step at that address two years later
(05:45):
when it wasn't there in April twenty twenty one. We
are dealing humors of the jury with a very unusual
case and a very complex defendant.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
He is an.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
A man with high levels of intelligence and self assurance.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
He appeared to be living a very comfortable life and
renewer with his wife of twenty years, Pauline Hannah. He
was a renowned professional.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He was all of those things, it seem, but he
was also living another life which you've heard about. He
was living in another world, a world centered around medicine,
Ashton and their relationship which at least in his mind,
was his future.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
McClintock said there was secret financial support for a number
of sex workers and a problematic methamphetamine habit, and those
two lives collided on April fourth, twenty twenty one. McLintock
thanks the jury for listening to the morass of circumstantial
evidence in the case and said it's her job to
(06:57):
fit together the parts of the evidence that can be
used to prove Polkinghorn killed his wife. Once the Crown's
done that, she said, you can be sure that suicide
can be excluded. On pathology, McClintock said the true positive
findings here are very limited and not decisive, nor need
(07:17):
they be. She said. The findings establish the cause of
death as neck compression and not much more, but it
is speculative to use the absence of other injury to
support suicide. Defense pathologist doctor Stephen Cordner used the lack
of injury to support the suicide theory, but he did
not have all the evidence, said McClintock, such as the
(07:40):
scene evidence or the prior strangulation evidence as alleged by
family friends. The reardons all the evidence as to what
Polkinghorn did before and after Hannah's death. The crown doesn't
have to prove everything you have heard in the case,
the prosecutor told the jury, but to convict they must
feel sure on the evidence that they've heard that Polkinghorn
(08:02):
killed Hannah and he either intended it or he did
it recklessly. McClintock moved on to Polkinghorn's actions after Hannah's death.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
He was largely calm with the police and first responders,
and not so. We hadn't talking on the phone to
family members and others about what has happened. He was
described as wailing and as devastated.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
He called himself devastated. Now it is very true, and
I don't suggest.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Otherwise that people grieve differently and there's no one way
to react.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I'm not suggesting that there is is.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Doctor Hettrick said, you look, shock can do strange things
to people. But remember what he's telling us in the days,
weeks and months that follow her death is that he's devastated, devastated.
He says, you are right members of the jury to
stress hist his claim of devastation.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
McClintock said that his priority, having made some calls about
his wife's death, was to delete his WhatsApp messages, including
his entire conversation history with Madison Ashton dating back to
twenty seventeen. During the police interview, Polkinghorn left the room
for a break at four twenty eight pm. McLintock said
(09:25):
when Detective Andrew Reeves examined the doctor's phone later, he
found no WhatsApp messages before April fifth, at about four
thirty pm. None of his messaging before then is available,
but we know they'd been in regular contact before that,
and a further review of his phone found he used
it multiple times overnight between April fourth and fifth, when
(09:48):
he told police he was asleep. Earlier messages were found
on Ashton's phone from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty one,
but the contents of those messages have been scrambled together.
Mclintock's said that's not a coincidence.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
It's not a coincidence that all of the messages prior
to five April had gone off doctor Polkinghorn's phone and scrambled.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
On Madison Ashton's.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I suggest, wouldn't you like to know what was being
said between those two in those earlier messages, But you
don't because doctor Polkinghorn has manipulated the evidence and deleted them.
The clear and obvious and I would say only inference
(10:39):
as to why he did this at that point in
time at the police station is because they contained messages
demonstrating that he was not the devastated husband at all.
If this was an open relationship that he had with
(11:00):
medicine Esh, mister Mansfield urges upon you, then what's the problem.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
There are also deleted searches, such as how to delete
iCloud storage, which Polkinhorn searched the afternoon of April fifth
after leaving the police station.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
The next search that he does and deletes is hugely significant,
and it comes on the sixth of April, and it's
on page eighty of Exhibit twenty.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
This search unmasks the murderer.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
I suggest leg ademer after strangulation.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
After strangulation.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Strangulation is an entirely different Woo took. In this context,
it conveys murder rather than conveying suicide.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
The one and only explanation is he's trying to check
if he had left behind a clue. McClintock said he
understands the working of the body and was worried that
he'd left a trace. As it turned out he hadn't.
There isn't an innocent explanation for the fact he searched
it on Duck Duck go and encrypted web browser. McClintock said.
(12:33):
She then moved on to Polkinghorn's holiday with Madison Ashton
the month of his wife's death. It's very telling, she
said that just three weeks after the loss of his
wife to a supposed suicide, he was off on a
holiday to a remote part of the country with Ashton.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Either he and his devastation just happened to have found
comfort in the arms of medicine Ashton in the South Island,
or this is what he wanted when.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
He decided, either that his wife was of the way and.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
He strangled her or what whether he did that more
spontaneously during an argument. Could be either of those things.
And I'll come back to this, but this is the
life he wanted.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
And there he is. The end of the month with
Madisone Ashton.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
From April seventh, twenty twenty one, Polkinghorn was contacting Madison
Ashton with limited references to Hannah and her death. McLintock
turned to what she said with Polkinghorn's attempts to manipulate witnesses.
He went around to his friend Paul Adrians's house and
encouraged him not to speak to police. Then there's Alison Ring,
(13:47):
Hannah's good friend, she said. Polkinghorn went around to her
house and started speaking ill of his wife, and also
procured a suicide note he said he'd found in Hannah's bedding.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
He knew, as Allison Ring told you, Pauline Hannah always
left nut for everything. He knew questions were being asked
about why she hadn't.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Left a note here.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
He is trying to manipulate Allison Rome. And as she
told you, that's exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
How she saw it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I felt I had been manipulated by him.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
That's what she.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Told you, McLintock said. Polkinghorn's deception got worse. She alleged
he planted blood in his house to explain away the
wound to his forehead that he could not explain at
his first interview. She said that while this sounds shocking,
the evidence tells us this. As ESR forensic scientist Fiona
(14:51):
Matheson examined the house thoroughly for blood and did not
find any on the steps leading up from the entrance
way to the small landing. She did find a red
brown mark on those steps, but said multiple times she'd
screened that area for blood and did not take a
sample because it didn't look like blood and was not blunt.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Two years later, along comes Dr Pulkinghorn to interfere in
all of that.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Doctor Scanlon is asked to visit his house at the
request of the defense.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Prior to arriving in New Zealand, he's been told there's
a blood stain on the side of the stairs. His
attention when he gets there is specifically drawn to that area,
but then it looked different. The one on the left
is what Fiona Mathieson looked at and said, I know
(15:45):
as a forensics shidist that is not blood, so I
didn't swab it. But in any event, she luminold the
entire area. The only blood stain that came up the
luminold testing was back over by the door. You'll remember
that two years later. The one on the right is
there when Doctor Scanlon turns out and he's directed to
(16:08):
it by whom.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Doctor Polk.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
There were visual signs of contamination. The mark is in
the same place, but the size and shape are very different.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I suggest too, and there just isn't any way of
being polite about it.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Doctor Polhan's that there.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
He knows he hasn't explained that mark on his head
an interview. He knows where that mark on his head
really came from from his wife.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
If you accept his covering things up, that's circumstantial evidence
you can legitimately use to infer his guilt to McClintock said.
For coverage of other news events in New Zealand, listen
to the front page The Herald's daily news podcast wherever
(16:58):
you get your podcasts. McClintock then moved on to part
two of her address, Pauline Hannah herself. McClintock said Hannah
had her challenges, but was not suicidal that night, saying
that Hannah had been painted as a bit of a
stress cadet who drank too much and was obsessed with
(17:19):
her appearance by her husband. McClintock pointed instead to Hannah
being a beautiful, successful woman in her early sixties. She
loved her family and treated Polkinghorn's children as her own.
She could suffer a crisis of confidence from time to time,
especially in her work during the COVID pandemic, but she
(17:39):
was flourishing in her job at the time of her
death and looking forward to the opening of a new
vaccination center. McLintock urged the jury not to pay attention
to individual emails, such as one Hannah wrote that included
the line my life is insane. She said people are
complex and words on a page don't always convey well
(18:01):
what sets behind them, especially in isolation. She said that
no one had seen anything to suggest she was on
the brink, and.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
To have her actions in going to the tip and
taking dinner to people can be sort of cast as
potential suicide indicators. Well, that confused even Doctormenki's who said,
that's a bit confusing to say that's an indicator of something.
It seems desperate to be frank to look to that
(18:33):
to suggest she was suicidal. People go to the tip
on long weekends and one of the reasons for that
is they want to go to the tip and throw.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Some things out. It doesn't have to be a mental
health issue.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
McClintock said Hannah was sad but philosophical about her mother's
death and had come to terms with it. Hannah was
also on prozac for twenty years and took a standard dose.
Her GP had said she was well maintained on that
medicine and stable. McClintock said, she's not suggesting the medications
she was on can't have a negative effect. The question
(19:09):
is did it. She had been on her medications for
a decade or more, and the evidence is the jurymine
a weight loss drug seemed to be helping her state
of mind. McClintock said Hannah had sought help to reduce
her alcohol intake in the years before her death, but
it seemed that Polkinghorn would taunt her with it at times.
(19:29):
Her blood alcohol limit at the time of death was
below the legal limit. McClintock says Hannah did not attempt
suicide between nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety two, as alleged
by her sister Tracy Hannah in evidence.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Pauline Hannah's medical records were traversed over hours of cross examination.
There is no medical evidence to support what Tracy Hann said.
Here were no marks on her list at all. Topsy
It is not something this supposed.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Attempt that anyone who was truly closed to.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Pauline Hannah was told on Tracy Hannah's own evidence. This
was both a great shocking piece of information, and yet
she also told you she kept it buried in the
recesses of her memory for something close to thirty years.
I can't explain Tracy Hannah's motivation to say what she
(20:30):
did about Pauline Hannah, and I need not prove the
crowd need not prove why she did. But I suggest
you can safely put that evidence from her to one side.
Whether it's driven by jealousy of Pauline, by some sort
of odd fascination with doctor Paulkinghorn, by a wish to
(20:54):
be a center of attention, who knows, but I suggested
it is unsafe to rely upon.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It is clear she had suicidal thoughts in twenty nineteen.
The call to the crisis team shows her mother was
in hospital and her husband had abandoned her at Christmas.
Her thoughts, though, were not of hanging, they were of
driving into a lorry, and she didn't get past those
invasive thoughts, saying she was too scared and loved her family.
(21:23):
McClintock says she suggested a comment Hannah made about chucking
herself off a bridge in the long Lands recording was
not serious. Hannah had significant protective factors in her life,
namely her family, so it's important to look at what
she did when she had those invasive thoughts like reaching
out to her GP. But she was also married to
(21:47):
the complex personality of Polkinghorn. He was both her great
love and her greatest vulnerability. McClintock said it was a.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Husband who she joined for sexual experiences with others to
please him, and the last evidence of that is in
twenty sixteen. Consistent with that, she describes group sex and
the Longlands recording as something she used to do. He
was the husband who she called an angry, angry man
(22:16):
in that Longlands recording when things didn't go his way.
The husband who knew she knew would have sex with
sex workers in Sydney, but who she didn't want doing
so on her patch, and she said that she was
clear about that. The husband who expected sex from her
every day and.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Would go into her bedroom demanding it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
McClintock said Polkinghorn was a husband who criticized her, blamed her,
told her not to wear body suits, and picked at
her about benign things. This was seen by her friend
John read In and there's evidence of Hannah drafting three
versions of the pleading letter she was to SND in
reply to her husband.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
He was the husband who had strangled her and threatened
her that he could do it anytime. He was the husband, though,
that she loved despite all of it. The crowd does
not and has not, contested that she loved him.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
It's clear that she loved him for all as many.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Facts, she loved him. She loved him dearly. She kept
trying to better herself to make him happy. The great
tragedy of all of those is that her love for
doctor Polkinghorn ultimately cost her her life.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
But as it happened in his hand, not at her.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
There were eleven witnesses who all said, as far as
they were concerned, Hannah was fulfilled and had purpose through
her work and her grandchildren. It's only after death that
Polkinghorn started to talk about her dress, McClintock said. And
while there's a note in only a third or a
quarter of cases, McClintock said, the evidence shows Hannah left
(24:09):
notes about everything. Her pattern was to reach out and
write down. If she was in pain, she would write
to herself or write to family to just get it out.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Because her pattern was to reach out and write down
she was in pain, that's what she would do.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
She spoke about her pain when she was in pain,
even to herself, emailed herself.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
She got it out, including when she was feeling low
April twenty twenty email to herself May twenty twenty email
to family about being bullied.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
She wrote it down, She got it out.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
She wrote her feelings down all the time, or contacted
people and spoke to them about it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
And yet she heeled herself and left no note. And
I simply say for her, that.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Doesn't Hannah searched for things all the time, but there's
no evidence she researched suicide methods before her death, which
suggests that she had to know how to take her
own life and the way the defense is alleged. Plus,
why would she have chosen to hang herself when there
were a number of drugs in the house she could
have taken instead, McClintock asked. And then there's the location
(25:22):
of where her alleged hanging took place.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
This is in the.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Front doorway, in the most public part of the house,
where she will be seen by whoever enters that doorway. Immediately,
which she could have been saved from Darwin life. The
door's class, as was its panel beside the door, does
it jel Given everything you know about who, how consumed
(25:47):
she was about appearance, about.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Others, who would find who? There?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Statistics don't tell you the answer with this, Well would she.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Do in what stated? Because she's naked.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
But for that dressing gown in the most public part
of the house, naked under a loose dressing gow, this
hugely proud, immaculate woman impulsively decided to leave this world
pretty much naked.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
McClintock then talked about what may have happened after Hannah
sent an email to Polkinghorn at ten forty six pm,
the last piece of written communications she made. We know
that she plugged her phone in at some point. Then,
if you followed the suicide narrative, Hannah got up at
some point in the night despite the high levels of
(26:48):
zoppoclone in her system, but she didn't touch her phone
or her laptop. She also didn't go to the toilet,
despite having a full bladder when she died. Instead, she
made a mess of a room, stripped just the top
sheet off the bed, and took off the pillowcases, which
appeared to have vanished. Hannah then went naked apart from
her robe to get the rope, but we don't know
(27:10):
exactly where from if it's still in the ute. She
went outside, full bladder in her robe, hair and makeup,
undone across the street to get it. Polking Horn had
said he'd sealed the ends of the rope the day before,
but the rope had been cut between the sealed ends,
so continuing that narrative, Hannah would have had to cut
(27:34):
the rope but then hidden the cutting implement in her
disinhibited state. She then would have had to truss one
bit of rope to the balustrade without any search on
her phone and laptop before moving a chair into the
hallway or without noise or lights. She also fetched a
leather belt to attach to the rope, despite her robe
(27:55):
having a belt. She would have done all of this
without being noticed by polkinghorn On, who we know was
using his laptop until around two forty four am. The
rope used was also unnecessarily long and from a needlessly
high point in the house, and did not have enough
tension when found by police. McClintock said on pathology. McLintock
(28:18):
said that it only takes us so far. The Crown
pathologists ruled that Hannah died of net compression. The defense
pathologists said they would expect Hannah to have suffered many
more injuries if she'd been strangled, but McClintock said the
pathologists acknowledged the minority of cases where there are no
or limited injuries are where there's a good reason, such
(28:42):
as a self sedated victim or an assailant who knows
what they're doing. McClintock said, various injuries on Hannah's body,
to her nose, her temple, her arms weren't present on
April fourth.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
It really just a.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Case of stopping, I suggested, thinking logically about the life,
because no matter how much you'll urge to discard all
of these injuries because of the view that there should
have been more, which I'll come to, it's actually much
more straightforward and you just stop and think about it,
because what are the chances that she has both become
(29:18):
suicidal and had this bumpy old time that's injured her
in all of these different.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Ways, And there's a fourth injury, an abrasion to her
back that McClintock says, is a bit more equivocal. It's
the only injury the two Crown pathologists both said could
have been made after death. You need to consider all
the injuries together, McClintock said, again, the answers here lie
(29:45):
outside the pathology. Hannah had no evident injuries on April fourth,
but here she is dead on April fifth with those injuries.
McClintock then moved on to the evidence supporting Hannah being
of victim of murder.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
The single most significant piece of evidence in this trial,
I suggest, is that doctor Pulpinghorn had tried to strangle
Pauline Hannah before she told her best friends the Reddins
about it in January twenty twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
January twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
She was dead from net compression within thirteen months of
that disclosure. That she told her friends that he had
done that. That's one of the few pieces of evidence
that's not been contested before you.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
So she did tell him that.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
There was a challenge to the Reddin's memory around what
she said in the Leader and after and whether it
was spoken of her gig, but there was no challenge
none to the fact that she said that he had
done it, and to the fact that she demonstrated that he.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Had done it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Pheasant Readon said, Hannah became agitated and described that Polkinghorn
had done this to her before the witness gestured with
her hands to her throat. McClintock said, Pheasant's husband, John Ridon, said,
during a dinner in twenty twenty, what she was telling
them became more and more serious before she placed her
(31:38):
hands on her throat. After this, she said nothing for
maybe five seconds, Riddon said, before saying he tried to
strangle me. When Hannah had defended Polkinghorn multiple times in
the past, why would she have lied about this as
the defense suggested, McClintock asked. Doctor Christopher Milroy, one of
(31:58):
the defense pathologists, acknowledged that while rare, it was possible
to strangle someone without leaving significant injuries.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Non fatal strangulation common feature of violence against women, a
key marker for the escalation of domestic violence. Dr Molroy
accepted that said, almost all of the strangulation cases he
has dealt with clinically involved a male perpetrator and a
female victim, so this is something just to be set
(32:29):
against all of this talk of suicide risk factors and
suicide indicators that the experts spoke of at length. Indicators
don't decide cases. You know, the facts decide cases. But
if we're going to get into looking at suicide indicators,
you have to look at this tone.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
She told the jury they should look at Polkinghorn's behavior,
and I told one friend Philip has become beastly, that
he was an angry man. She warned her niece not
to stay with them over Chris and asked her step
children not to repeat things back to him. Back to
Hannah's injuries, McClintock said, they are not nonspecific when viewed
(33:10):
through a lens of control and aggression.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Either she's been surprised in the ensuing struggle, she's been
struck and punched and gripped and strangled, or what there's
an argument during which she's been struck and punched and
(33:40):
gripped and strangle. You don't need to prove which there
isn't a camera in that role. This is about connecting
everything together, so it's really important not to get trapped
into isolating bits of evidence.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
The crown doesn't have to prove what type of strangulation
was used, McClintock said. In a criminal trial, the exact
mechanism of death does not need to be proven, but
you do need to be sure the neck compression was
caused by Polkinghorn and not Hannah hanging herself she told
the jury. McClintock said that the jury should also remember
(34:23):
that Polkinghorn is a doctor and would have been avoiding
making it look like he killed his wife. The Crown
must prove two things that Polkinghorn killed Hannah, and at
the time he did that he either intended to kill
her or was reckless as to whether his actions would
kill her. While the Crown does not need to prove motive,
(34:46):
it's helpful to look at what was going on in
their relationship. The evidence shows that Hannah knew Polkinghorn had
sex with prostitutes, and she may have joined in in
years past to please him, but she didn't enjoy it
and wasn't happy about his infidelity, and there is no
evidence of it being an open relationship. In April twenty
(35:09):
twenty one, it's unclear why he didn't leave her, and
the reasons could have been anything from arrogance to appearances
to money. McClintock said, while Hannah was scared, he had
a big shot lawyers on his side, and that she
wouldn't have any money in her name anymore if she
left him. There were also concerns about finances, to the
(35:30):
point that Hannah opened a personal loan account right on
the cusp of her death. McClintock said, we must add
to all of this that Hannah was a woman whose
husband was on math.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
He's preoccupied.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
It's some level with each of these things as well
other women, money, meth.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
The real problem in his mind that supports this is why.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So whether he decided to end it having watched videos
that night for Madison, Ashton smoked myth and surprised his wife.
Whether they argued and he strangled her during that both.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Are available.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Alsia McClintock turned to Polkingcorn's life in the eighteen months
before his wife's death.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
There's three aspects to who he had become on the
night of four April. His behavior had changed. He had
become increasingly angry and agitated. That might tie to his
use of myth fetomene.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
He's obsessed with medicine Ashton. He thinks he's setting up
a life with her. It's clear in his.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Messages that that's what he thinks. He's hemorrhaging money and
money was an issue he's preoccupied with. So again, any
one or more of these support the inference the logical
(37:14):
conclusion that these two argued about something at night, or
these issues boiled over for doctor Pulkinghorn that night and
his decision to strangle his wife.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Many people picked up on the fact he was acting differently,
including being more irritable at work and disclosing his meth
us to colleagues. At the same time, He's going through
the cash and has been controlling of and abusive too
his wife, and had an ever developing relationship with the
Madison Ashton. The suggestion he's not responsible for the meth
(37:49):
in the toilet adjoining Hannah's room is just silly, McClintock said.
Polkinghorn had also tried to blame the meth pipe found
at auckland I on others. Unusual behavior and aggression are
symptoms of meth use, as we heard from an expert witness,
doctor Emma Schwartz, and it is also associated with an
(38:10):
increased libido. Hannah had complained to friends about him wanting
sex every day, calling him a sex fiend. Schwartz also
testified that meth use is associated with an increased risk
of violence.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Being an older, wealthy, privileged man does not make him.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I muse on the effect of.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
On to Madison Ashton, McClintock said that Polkinghorn is emotionally
and financially fully invested in Ashton at the time of
Hannah's death. It doesn't matter what Ashton's true intentions were
or whether she was genuine or not genuine. McClintock says,
it's about what he thought and what he wanted.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
This dream life that he had Madison Ashton could.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Not be reconciled with the life he had at home
with Pauline Hannah.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Cracks were starting to show She's.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Worried, Pauling Hannah's worried. She's being worried throughout twenty twenty.
You know that something's got to get and the tensions
between these two and the collision of these two worlds.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Evidence shows he was a man spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars on sex workers and drugs to try and
keep his second life away from Hannah.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
When you draw that together, there's one person in this marriage,
Miss Hannah, who actually had her life pretty together at
this point despite her struggles, but she was busy.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
She had struggles with her husband, but she's busy and
pretty together despite all of it. She turns up dead
under a sheet the bottom of the stairs, totally out
of the blue and a shock to all of those
close to her.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Onto the night itself, McClintock said that Polkinghorn lied to
police about going to bed at ten pm on April fourth,
with data showing his phone active after that, including him
putting it on airplane mode between one eleven am and
eight oh six am. He still used his phone during
that time. There is photo and video app usage through
(40:24):
to eight oh five am, two minutes before he calls
one one one.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
He is active for much of this night. And the
point is he had plenty of time to kill her.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Whether it's between eleven sixteen and one team one window
two forty four and six forty six another one now,
no one can say.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
The point is is clenty.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Of time and either of those windows, plenty of time
to get himself in a state about Madison Aston message
her or her message him, plenty of time have a
toot on his meth pipe, plenty of time to either
(41:16):
surprise his.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Wife in her bedroom or argue with her and strangle
her there somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Don't have to be sure about where upstairs bedroom does
seem the most likely place. Plenty of time for his
wife to at least leave one.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Mark on him as she tried to fight back that
cut to his head.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
That cut he simply couldn't and didn't explain in either
his first written statement to the police or his police interview.
Noticed by all the first responders.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Are photos sent to Madison Ashton on April fourth shows
Polkinghorn didn't have a mark then, and there's also meth
traces in Hannah's toilet that puts him in the room
and he doesn't want that. McClintock said, he knows what
happened when he went in then he killed his what.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
He desperately doesn't want to be put in that room.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
On his own account, polking Horn was going to the
gym twice a week with personal trainer Barry Payne. McClintock
said he could have carried Hannah down the stairs. There's
also an important detail suggesting she was brought down the
stairs she's covered in a sheet when first responders arrive,
(42:46):
and a sheet is also missing from the bed where
she slept. The sheet was on top of her under
the duvet. No sheet was mentioned in the interview. McClintock
said Polking had ample time to stage the scene as
a hanging and would not have used surgical knots as
(43:07):
the defense suggested. McClintock said, we must prove Pauline Hannah
was killed by him and with murderous intent.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
That's what we must prove every nuance in the evidence.
We need not prove he had.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Time to do all of the things I've gone through.
But at the same time, as I referred to yesterday, there.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Was a time limit on him here. There was a
pt session booked.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
In with Barry at nine am that morning. Pauline had
arranged to go first. She had a work meeting as
well afterwards, so he knows alarm bells are going to
be ringing if she is not with Barry at nine am.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
He had also been so active that night he never
plugged his phone in. McClintock said, by comparison, Hannah's phone
was not used after ten seven pm on April fourth,
and the defense's suggestion that she drafted two messages overnight
are a complete red herring. In comparison, Polkinghorn's phone was
(44:14):
active throughout the night.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Something has happened between them that night. Whether he is high,
low strung out on meth, we can't know which.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
But the drug does its.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Effects continued after the period of intoxication.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Doctor Schwartz told you that, so.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Its ability to play a role in aggression and behavior
remains regardless of its precisely when he may have taken it.
In simple terms, his wife has died on a night
when it is clear he is awake much of that night,
and he has inexplicably hit his phone on airplane mind
(45:00):
and he has had time to do all of these things.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
There was a time limit, and Polkinghorn did not tidy
the upstairs room or flush the toilet. McClintock said he
did not expect the police to go all through his
house over an eleven day scene examination. Onto Polkinghorn's interview,
to do.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You think there's an interview was unusual, weird even I'm
not seeking and saying that to promote the idea that
there's one way to behave or one way to grief,
But it's an incredible mixture self centeredness, jokingess, relaxed presentation,
(45:46):
and mixed at times with an almost episode of what
appears on.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Its face to be acting.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
It breaks down in grief and then bounces back and
starts talking again.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
McClintock said the interview is three hours of Polkinghorn trying
to distract from the scene. But when his pinned down
on the fact the rope is tied halfway up that balustrade,
his demeanor changed.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
His willingness to talk changes at that point in time
when he realizes this photograph that's been pointed out to him,
what he's been saying doesn't seem to be right.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
Everything changes. He's been called out.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So I suggest that much of that interview is a
complete deflection from the truth.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
McClintock then returned to the scene and said she left
it last deliberately to help the jury understand Polkinghorn's willingness
to manipulate people and evidence.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
The interview was a deflection because the scene that those
first responders went to that morning was a deception. Pauline
Hannah had not committed suicide, and the scene the police
were looking at and that's why it didn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
If she had, it should have.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Been obvious that she had, but it wasn't obvious. You've
got police forensic scientists combing through it, struggling to make
sense of it because it didn't make sense. Police officers
who were there Sadly, they attend suicide scenes and took
(47:33):
one look at that right satan i over said they
loved odd so.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
He tested it. We know whatever, it didn't stack up.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
The very first piece of evidence the jury heard, the
one one one call was at eight o seven am
when Polkinghorn said he'd found his wife. McClintock said that
from the point the operator told Polkinghorn to cut Hannah down,
he would have had to remove her from the chair
she was sitting on and undo the ropes and belts
(48:05):
and then lay her down on the ground and then
check if she was breathing.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
That's a lot to do, especially when he says he's
in shop. Well he would be if she committed suicide.
But that's a lot to do. Yet he managed to
do it all and about ten seconds.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Polkinghorn was also told to leave everything as you have
found it, but by the time paramedics got there, everything
used to facilitate her death on the supposed suicide narrative
had been moved. McClintock said. The crown case is that
the scene was staged. An unexplained piece of rope was
(48:47):
on the stairs towards the garage, untoasted bread was in
the toaster. Polkinghorn took the belt, wrapped it around in
his hands, put it in the kitchen. There's also blood
between her left to index and middle fingers, but no
injury to her fingers, which McClintock says doesn't make sense
(49:07):
to have come from the bleeding in Hannah's ear. She
said that Polkinghorn couldn't explain the rope, such as why
there was such a long tail where it was tied,
and why there was a piece on the lower stairs.
Why did Polkinghorn loosen the rope at the top of
the balustrade. He told police it looked awful hanging there,
(49:30):
but when police arrived it was still hanging. He didn't
expect to be interrogated like he was, the prosecutor said,
and his explanations around the ropes don't add up. As
for Hannah's room upstairs, where Hannah slept the night before
McLintock said, it doesn't make sense for Hannah to have
gone to bed with her room in the state it
(49:51):
was in. The breakfast scene in the kitchen was a facade,
she said, and there is an odd collection of items
in the washing machine, including an acrylic toenail math traces
and the toilet placed polkinghorn in Hannah's bad room.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
So bringing all of that together, nothing is in place
that there's this scene that should have been in place if.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
It was the suicide.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
You can't treat this scene as having any sort of validity.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
It's been wholly interfed with police.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Spent eleven days there because it had no integrity trying
to find out.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
What was going on.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
It's a big house as well, a lot of rooms.
They're doing their jobs, they're being thorough. They're trying to
understand why this is said to be a suicide, and
yet everything.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
About it is out of kilter.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
They're trying to figure out what happened because the disease
husband couldn't give them any meaningful insight into what happened.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
In their house.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
McClintock said, there's no one way for the jury to
approach this, but she asks them to put aside sympathy
and prejudice and analyze the critical issue. Has the Crown
proven to you that this was murder? She said that
the evidence is there from the prior strangulation evidence thirteen
(51:21):
months prior to the faked blood to his duck duck
go search, as well as the tensions in their marriage
and Polkinghorn's growing attachment to Madison Ashton.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
He had the intelligence to do it, He had the arrogance,
the drivers, the.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Myth fuelled current.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
His relationship with Pauline Henner was done. He had detached
from that life. He blamed Pauline Hanner in life for
a lot see it me, Lisa, He wrote her. It
is the final insult to her to blame her for
(52:06):
her own death. I suggest, members of the jury that
the evidence that you have heard proves the life that
doctor Polkinghorn told when he rut one one one and
said that she had home himself. I suggest you can
safely be sure on this evidence that he's guilty of murder.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
You can listen to episodes of Accused the Polkinghorn Trial
through the Front Page podcast feed or find it on
iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. This series is
presented and produced by me Chelsea Daniels, with producer Ethan
Seles and sound engineer Patti Fox. Additional production support by
(52:54):
Helen King. Additional reporting from The Heralds Craig Capitan and
George Block, and for more coverage of the Polkinghorn Trial
head to nsidherld dot co dot nz
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