Craig Kapitan: On the defence kicking off their case in the Philip Polkinghorne murder trial

The defence has kicked off their case in the Philip Polkinghorne murder trial.

The Auckland eye surgeon's accused of killing his wife, Pauline Hanna, in their home in 2021.

The defence says Hanna took her own life.

It called its first witness, Pauline's sister Tracey, who believes Hanna took her own life.

The Herald's Craig Kapitan told Heather du Plessis-Allan Polkinghorne's defence lawyer has argued if it's murder he would have had to do it with no mistakes.

He says the lawyer's argued there's no forensic evidence to back up the crown's case.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So to the polking Horn murder trial. Today is the
first day of the defense for Philip Pulkinghorn. The first
witness called was Pauline Hannah's sister Tracy, who said she
believes that Pauline Hannah committed suicide. Now the Crown has
argued that Philip Pulkinghorn killed his wife and staged it
as a suicide. In April twenty twenty one, Herold Court
reported Craig Capitana's with us. Now, Hey, Craig, Heather, what

(00:20):
did Ron Mansfield mean when he told the jury that
this is not the perfect murder?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's bestical to say to the jury, Look, you have
two choices here. It's either were murder or a suicide.
But if this was a murder, it would have had
to have been the perfect murder to have left no
forensic evidence inside the house. Sort of outsmart two pathologists.
Earlier in the trial, there were two pathologists who said
basically that they could only tell that she had died
from court that compression, so they couldn't say for certain
whether it was hanging her. Strangulation and circumstantial cases a

(00:49):
lot by times to have prosecutors say something along the
lines of either he is guilty or simply be a
muckiest man in the world to have all these random,
suspicious things happened against him. So this is basically Ron
Mansfield kind of turning things on their head, saying either
he's not guilty or he's committed the purpose murder.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
What did Pauline Hanna, Pauline Hannah's sister say when she appeared.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, the main thing we learned today was that sometime
in the early nineties, after the death of their father,
Pauline Hands supposedly told her that she had attempted suicide
during kind of in the heat of the moment during
an argument the farmstead in Hawk's Bay. Defense had mentioned
this earlier in the trial during cross examination of another witness,
but this is the first time Jeers heard it directly

(01:35):
from the source. It's also the first time they kind
of got a feeling for this painful family risked with
her on one side and her brother just fine for
the crown.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, very much. Now it's being confirmed that Philip Polkinhorn
himself is not going to take the stand, how did
Ron Mansfield explain that.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, he basically said, police, I've already kind of had
the shot at his client and kind did him dirty
the first time, so he's not going to let it
happen again. Jurors earlier in the trial. I've already watched
the video interview that they did with him just a
couple hours after his wife's death. He didn't realize at
the time that he was a suspect, so he was

(02:14):
unguarded and formal, his lawyer said, not realizing that quote's
going to be broadcast at the Nation later on. He's
referring to this trial. He said, basically, any testimony that
he gave on the stand now would be a distraction
because it would allow prosecutors to build more into his
sex life and drug use, and says that's not really
relevant to the cold heart evidence in this trial. Of course,

(02:35):
prosecutors would probably strongly disagree with that contention.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Craig, one of the surprises in the last few days
was that Madison Ashton, the mistress, was on the witness
list for the prosecution, but didn't appear. Did we learn why.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
No, I have to be very guarded. I can't say
anything that's not said to the jury, but I can't
tell you that the jury is also curious about this.
They sent out a message to the judge earlier today
asking why she hasn't testified when she was on the list,
and the judge basically said, look, you have all the
evidence before you. I can't comment on that. You just

(03:10):
kind of have to take it as it is. But
you can't use that to infer anything as well. It's
just what it is.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
And is it the first day that Philip Polkinghorn's kids
were actually there?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah? I believe so. I'm in an odd position in
the courtroom where don't get to look behind me too often,
but it did seem that that was the first day there.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Craig, it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much,
really appreciated Craig Captain, the Herald's court reporter, and sorry
about the quality of the line.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
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