WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT
Surgeon Philip Polkinghorne was always known by his colleagues as someone who was “incredibly hard-working and would drop everything to see a patient”.
But he was also known for his short fuse, a colleague told jurors today in his Auckland High Court murder trial as other witnesses described a disparaging attitude towards his wife, his suspected infidelity and one occasion when he was reported to have wrapped his hands around his wife’s neck and threatened he could do it again.
“He had an unusual demeanour,” fellow Auckland Eye ophthalmologist Dr Dean Corbett told jurors today at Polkinghorne’s ongoing murder trial, explaining that he had to be confronted at one point after the board of directors felt his behaviour was presenting “a risk to the staff and the company”.
Polkinghorne, 71, is accused of having fatally strangled wife Pauline Hanna before calling 111 on the morning of April 5, 2021, to report her suicide by hanging. Authorities were almost immediately suspicious after noting irregularities in the couple’s Remuera home, including a rope that seemed to be tied too loosely to support a person’s weight, a dishevelled room where Hanna was reported to have slept and several methamphetamine stashes.
The defence, meanwhile, has characterised Hanna’s death as a tragic suicide by someone who had a decades-long battle with depression and a job that had reached new levels of stress as she helped facilitate the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Corbett said today he had known Polkinghorne since about 1990, when he was a student and the defendant was a mentor. They became colleagues at Auckland Eye around 2001 and would see each other socially from time to time.
Polkinghorne’s specialty involved the back of the eye, and people who specialise in that relatively new area are often considered the “last ditch” before someone loses their sight, Corbett said, explaining that most people he knew with that speciality tended to be “more stressed than some of the other specialty areas”.
But unique to Polkinghorne was his “intolerance for things not going well in the operating theatre”, the colleague said, explaining that he would “get very upset”.
“It was never a vindictive anger,” Corbett explained. “It was always in the patient’s best interests.”
But around 2018 or 2019 Corbett said he was tasked by the board of directors with talking to Polkinghorne about it following complaints by theatre staff about the doctor’s aggression.
Over the next six months, Corbett said he called Hanna about four to six times to discuss her husband’s behavioural issues at work. But he was left with the feeling that she was unable to deal with it, he said. He said he suggested he would benefit from “medical assistance” such as counselling but he followed up and learned it never happened.
During a meeting about a month after Hanna’s death, the board was told Polkinghorne had revealed to one doctor he had been using methamphetamine. The Medical Council of New Zealand was alerted, as was their obligation, Corbett said.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC noted during cross-examination that Corbett said in a statement to police that “at times he can be a bit intense” in the operating theatre and would have “low tolerance for disturbances”, describing it as “an old school sort of thing” uncommon these days with younger surgeons. That could be applied to a lot of professions, the lawyer said.
Corbett agreed, but said it wasn’t just limited to that.
“I think there was a behavioural change,” he said. “He seemed quite a different person. We all had our ideas about why that might be.”
Some speculated it might be because of memory loss, he said.
Corbett said he had met Polkinghorne and his wife socially on occasion and had also observed them at work functions over the year. Polkinghorne and Hanna would often turn up dressed in complementary outfits “and appeared to adore each other”, he said of the functions.
But others who entered the witness box today painted the couple’s relationship in starkly different terms.
“From the get-go [of their marriage], Philip came across as controlling,” said Victoria Pheasant Riordan, a longtime friend who served as matron of honour at the couple’s wedding.
Riordan said she didn’t see any signs of physical abuse until she met Hanna for a catch-up in a Havelock North restaurant 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 witness’ husband, John Riordan, gave a similar account of the conversation.
“She said she had to be very, very careful around him because she wasn’t sure if he would blow up,” John Riordan testified. “What she was telling us was becoming more and more serious. Then she stopped talking and she did this.”
John Riordan also wrapped his hands around his neck.
“She said nothing for maybe five seconds,” he said, explaining that she held the position before explaining to the couple: “He tried to strangle me.”
Prosecutor Alysha McClintock asked how sure he was about the terminology Hanna used - specifically the word “strangled”. He said his recollection was “very accurate” - “100%”.
“I just said to her, ‘Pack up your bags and stay with us,’” he recalled. “My attitude was he’d done it once, he’d do it again. That’s what I said to her.”
But the Riordans both said Hanna demurred. John Riordan recalled Hanna saying that her husband had since shown remorse and told her it wouldn’t happen again.
“She kind of backed away,” said Victoria Riordan, who goes by her middle name Pheasant. “It was almost, I think, that she didn’t want to talk about it. That’s my impression. Things were a bit emotional at that point.”
The next day, Pheasant Riordan sent a follow-up text to her friend, saying, among other things: “I wish I could take some of your pain away”. Jurors were shown a copy of the text.
The two exchanged texts again a month later. This time Hanna replied: “A good couple of weeks here as PJP [Polkinghorne] in much better frame of mind which makes everyone so much nicer. His old self!”.
Jurors also heard today from Alison Ring, who had been a friend of Hanna and Polkinghorne for about three decades. Ring also described a series of revelations Hanna had made about her marriage troubles in the years before her death.
She recalled a dinner the couples had together at the Northern Club in June 2020 in which Polkinghorne had been “extremely agitated” about issues with Auckland Eye. At some point, she said, she walked off with Hanna for a private conversation.
“She told me she was extremely worried about Polk’s mental health,” Ring recalled.
“She said she was really, really worried. He was difficult to live with, he was verbally aggressive - didn’t say physically - and she couldn’t depend on him.”
Ring said she suggested Polkinghorne see a counsellor and her friend agreed it was a good idea.
Although she couldn’t put a date on it, Ring also recounted a conversation with Hanna sometime in 2019 or 2020 in which Hanna said her husband was having an affair. Hanna said she found out by looking at his laptop.
“I don’t care how many prostitutes he f***s in Sydney, but I will not tolerate him having an affair with someone in my space,” she recalled Hanna saying.
Ring said when she asked Hanna what she was going to do about it, the friend said she had a plan.
“I’m going to see a lawyer and write a will and I’m going to sort out my finances,” she recalled Hanna saying.
Prosecutors speculated in their opening address earlier this month that Polkinghorne and Hanna might have been arguing about finances, a “double life” he had been leading with an Australian sex worker or the exorbitant amount of money he had been spending on sex workers when Hanna died.
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The six-week trial has attracted a near overflow crowd of spectators to the courthouse complex’s largest courtroom since its start two and a half weeks ago. Justice Graham Lang warned the unusually large and sometimes loud crowd today that, starting Friday, the trial would be temporarily relocating to a smaller courtroom to accommodate a visit by the Supreme Court.
Spectators wanting a seat were advised to arrive early.
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.
The Herald is covering the case in a daily podcast, Accused: The Polkinghorne Trial. You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, through The Front Page feed, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Police Association supports cameras but worries about costs.