Philip Polkinghorne spent $14,000 on a single methamphetamine deal, buying 56g from a dealer who then tried to blackmail him after Pauline Hanna’s death.
As police investigated the eye surgeon’s possible role in his wife’s death – and after discovering drugs at his Remuera home – the dealer later contacted Polkinghorne to demand $5000.
The Herald has learned that Polkinghorne paid $14,000 to the methamphetamine dealer around April 2021. Hanna, 63, was found dead on April 5 2021. Last month Polkinghorne was acquitted of her murder.
On the first day of the murder trial, the ophthalmologist pleaded guilty to methamphetamine charges relating to 37.7g of meth seized by police from his Upland Rd, Remuera house and a P pipe found under his bed. Polkinghorne is due to be sentenced on the drug charges on November 1.
The drug dealer, who the Herald on Sunday has chosen not to name, said he met Polkinghorne in person once around April 2021.
The 56g of meth were then provided to a third party to give to Polkinghorne.
“We were the middlemen; we helped him source the meth. I literally went on a group page and contacted some dodgy-looking guy who I hoped wouldn’t rob us. Then we met up with the eye surgeon’s friend ... and gave the meth to him.
“We sorted the eye surgeon out because he offered to help us get a new house because we’d been kicked out. But he didn’t then, he threatened to have people come after us, so we didn’t talk to him again,” the dealer said.
Then after it emerged that Polkinghorne was being treated as a suspect in Hanna’s death the dealer contacted the eye surgeon a few months later seeking $5000.
The Herald on Sunday has obtained a text from the dealer to Polkinghorne saying: “Philip, you will put $5,000 into [account] or the ongoing investigation against you will be getting some newly found incriminating evidence against you, photos, videos and text messages.”
When asked why he demanded money from Polkinghorne, the dealer said: “Are you sure this is the Herald?” Your questions sound like ... I feel like I am going to have someone show up at my house in the middle of the night.”
Polkinghorne did not respond to the blackmail attempt, and the dealer said he did not have any further contact with Polkinghorne, including since his acquittal.
Polkinghorne’s former lover, sex worker Madison Ashton, confirmed he had told her about the drug dealer’s attempt to blackmail him.
Ashton says he didn’t complain to police because it would have led them to the dealer. She believed Polkinghorne had more than one meth dealer.
“Philip told me he was being bullied and showed me screenshots of the dealer’s text message. I said ‘Are you going to follow it up? This is serious, you should contact the police.’
“Philip was bizarrely not worried, so I tried to message the guy to find out who he was, but he didn’t respond.”
Ashton, who was in a relationship with Polkinghorne from 2017 to 2021, said she took recreational drugs with him. She believed he developed a serious drug habit sometime in 2018.
The high-class escort claims he was emaciated when they had a tryst at a Mt Cook resort, three weeks after Hanna’s death.
“With meth you appear completely normal, but his moods were erratic, and he took it when we had sex,” Ashton said.
“The first time he tried it I was fast asleep, but I got up because it was freezing. All the windows were open, and he was standing there naked. ‘I want to try this stuff, but I don’t know how to do it.’ It didn’t take long for him to love it.”
In a text message sent in 2021, Ashton contacted Polkinghorne’s son Ben in London to say she was concerned his father was using methamphetamine too often. In a text seen by the Herald she claimed:
“Hey Ben, he’s to stop this... the 26gm they found was for personal useage, he had lied for a year he wasn’t doing it at all when the reality is he was smashing it” her text message said.
Ashton said she was not shying away from being an out and proud sex worker who took recreational drugs with Polkinghorne.
“I don’t give a f*** about what people think. I own my behaviour. I did drugs, Philip and I did P.
“I am a sex worker, I am not shying away from my accountability and who I am and what I’ve done. I expect the same from other people.”
Polkinghorne,71, was acquitted of murdering his wife after an eight-week trial in the High Court at Auckland. Pauline Hanna, a Counties Manukau health executive responsible for distributing the Covid-19 vaccine, was found dead in the Remuera mansion she shared with Polkinghorne on Easter Monday 2021.
The Crown’s case was that Polkinghorne fatally strangled Hanna, staging it to look like a suicide, and that he was living a double life, obsessed with meth and in a relationship with Madison Ashton in Sydney.
Polkinghorne’s defence was that Hanna was exhausted during the Covid response, had a history of mental health issues, was on medication for depression then tragically took her own life.
Polkinghorne entered guilty pleas to possession of methamphetamine, which carries a maximum punishment of six months’ imprisonment, and possession of a methamphetamine pipe, which is punishable by up to one year’s imprisonment.
The charges were not allowed to be reported following Hanna’s death, but suppression lapsed with the admission of guilt.
Polkinghorne, 71, is due to appear in the High Court on Friday for sentencing on the methamphetamine charges. His lawyers have indicated they may seek a discharge without conviction on the charges.
The trial heard evidence from Polkinghorne’s former colleague Dr Susan Ormonde, the clinical director at Auckland Eye, that he had disclosed he had been taking methamphetamine and suggested she try some too.
A day before Hanna’s funeral, Polkinghorne had lunch with Ormonde and her husband. The eye surgeon spoke about the night Hanna died and was concerned their open marriage involving sex workers and drug use would be made public.
“We were quite shocked and not expecting him to say meth,” Ormonde told the trial. She said he spoke about the drugs as if both he and Pauline took it.
“He asked if we’d ever tried meth, which we said ‘no’ and he said, ‘you should,’ Ormonde said.
She asked if they had used it the night before Hanna died and claimed Polkinghorne said, “We’ve not used meth for six months.”
The murder trial heard that when Hanna died, there was no methamphetamine found in her blood or in a hair sample according to a toxicology report . Her internet searches suggested she was not familiar with the drug: “What does P look like,” she asked Google on Christmas Eve 2020, following it up with a search for: “What sensation does P give you??”
Carolyne Meng-Yee is an Auckland-based investigative journalist who won Best Documentary at the Voyager Media Awards in 2022. She worked for the Herald on Sunday from 2007-2011 and rejoined the Herald in 2016 after working as an award-winning current affairs producer at TVNZ’s 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Sunday.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated texts from Madison Ashton were sent to Ben Polkinghorne in 2018. That date has now been corrected to 2021.
About 250 people attended a rally in Tauranga on Sunday.