Former high-profile murder defendant Philip Polkinghorne returned to an Auckland courtroom today, this time for a procedural hearing before the coronial inquest into the death of his wife, Pauline Hanna.
Polkinghorne would be amenable to giving evidence at next year’s inquest if the coroner thought it was needed, his lawyer revealed.
He did not give evidence at his criminal trial.
Jurors in the High Court at Auckland found Polkinghorne not guilty of murder last September, albeit with a note to the judge suggesting they weren’t entirely convinced of the defendant’s version of events either.
Polkinghorne’s lawyers argued Hanna committed suicide after a decades-long struggle with depression paired with a high-stress job distributing the then-new Covid-19 vaccine.
Prosecutors maintained she was delicately strangled by her eye surgeon husband, leaving only subtle traces of a struggle, while he was high on methamphetamine and she was possibly in a hard sleep due to off-prescription sleeping pills.
It was alleged Polkinghorne then posed her lifeless body to look as if she had committed suicide in the foyer of the couple’s $6.2 million Remuera home.
The coronial inquest, set to take place next August, has been convened to delve further into the cause of Hanna’s death.
Although there will likely be many similar aspects between the murder trial and the coroner’s inquest, they are two distinct processes with ultimately separate aims. A coroner’s inquest seeks to determine the circumstances of a person’s death and what can be learned from the situation.
Criminal liability is not the focus, and as such, there is no defendant. But as Hanna’s husband at the time of death, Polkinghorne is considered an interested party along with Hanna’s siblings and police.
The Coroner’s Act gives those overseeing inquests a wider latitude to call witnesses, including those who might not be allowed to give evidence in a criminal trial.
Coroner Tania Tetitaha discussed in broad terms today who some of those witnesses might be. She set deadlines for the interested parties to put to paper the facts they were in agreement on. An agreed statement of facts could then be supplemented as needed by trial transcripts and live witnesses, she said.
As for Polkinghorne’s willingness to give evidence, it came with a caveat from his lawyer, Ron Mansfield, KC, who also represented him at the criminal trial.
Some of the submissions filed by police so far “feel like a pseudo-prosecution of Philip Polkinghorne rather than an investigation into the cause and circumstances of Pauline Hanna’s death”, he told the coroner, adding that the process is “certainly not an opportunity for New Zealand police to have another go”.
“That’s what it feels like at the moment,” Mansfield added.
The coroner acknowledged the inquest would be “a somewhat unusual situation” coming after a criminal trial.
Mansfield said Polkinghorne would be available to give evidence “if the coroner finds it helpful”. But she might find it superfluous, he said, given the lengthy police interview that Polkinghorne gave police on the same day his wife died.
Coroner Tetitaha said additional evidence from Polkinghorne could be helpful in exploring stressors Hanna had in her life before her death.
“Probably the person who would know that best would be Dr Polkinghorne, to be honest,” she explained.
Mansfield agreed that might be of assistance, but indicated he was worried about cross-examination trying to steer the focus to other issues, such as marriage issues years earlier or Polkinghorne’s dalliances with other women.
The coroner responded that she didn’t envision that being a priority for her.
“I’m looking for him to help me put into perspective what’s happening,” she explained. “The gap I can see in the evidence is what were the stressors in their marriage at the time of her death.”
The coroner also noted that evidence from Polkinghorne might be useful if Madison Ashton, the high-profile Australian sex worker with whom he was allegedly in a secret relationship at the time of his wife’s death, was to give evidence of her own.
Ashton also did not give evidence at the criminal trial, although it wasn’t for lack of trying by prosecutors. Attempts to locate her during the trial were unsuccessful. She has since indicated to the media that she would like to take part in the inquest.
More decisions regarding who will give evidence and what subjects they can talk about are expected at the next pre-inquest hearing.
During today’s hearing, Hanna’s Hawke’s Bay-based brother, Bruce Hanna, sat in the front row of the public gallery with his family. Hanna’s sister, who resides in London, listened in via audio-video feed.
Polkinghorne sat on his own in the back row of the gallery.
Exactly one year ago, many of the same people were in the High Court at Auckland for the third week of what would ultimately become a nine-week trial.
It turned out to be one of the most memorable days of evidence, as Hanna’s longtime best friend, Victoria Pheasant Riordan, told jurors that Hanna had made an outcry to her about domestic violence just over a year before her death.
“She became quite agitated and she described to us that Philip had done this to her,” Riordan testified, getting emotional as she wrapped her own hands around her throat to demonstrate what her friend showed her. “He’d done it to her and indicated that he could do that at any time.
“She took that as a threat – a real threat that he could do that to her at any time.”
The defence later disputed the accuracy of the testimony, which was backed by Riordan’s husband. Polkinghorne was never physically violent with his wife, his lawyer argued.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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