Four weeks into the murder trial of Philip Polkinghorne, the focus has turned to his finances and the hundreds of thousands of dollars he gave to sex workers. Video | Carson Bluck
Opinion by Steve Braunias
Steve Braunias writes for the Listener and Newsroom.
Retired eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne has pleaded not guilty to murdering wife Pauline Hanna in 2021.
The Crown alleges Polkinghorne, 71, strangled his wife and staged her death to look like a suicide at their Remuera home but the defence says there is no evidence of a homicide.
Pantomime villain on Monday, a lecherous old goat foaming at the mouth at the prospect of sex with an Australian hooker mere days after the tragic death of his wife of 25 years; href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/philip-polkinghorne-murder-trial-live-updates-detective-who-examined-pauline-hannas-phone-accused-of-missteps/XQAV5TVSEBBFPHESLCQMGLQ4AY/">but on Tuesday, a loving and supportive husband, exchanging heart emojis all day long, chattering away about the drycleaning and dinner dates and workouts at the “gymbo” with their personal trainer “Bazza”, the pair of them always there for each other: “Hello darling… Love you darling… Thank God I’ve got you to come home to.”
The murder trial of Dr Philip Polkinghorne took on a change of register, hushing the Crown’s sex-obsessed ravings as the defence devoted hours and hours on Tuesday in the High Court at Auckland to reciting many, many sweet texts between the wealthy Remuera ophthalmologist, 71, and his wife Pauline in the months and weeks and days leading up to her death on April 5, 2021, either by suicide or murder.
No hookers. No subscription OnlyFans smut. No smoking the illicit aphrodisiacal fumes of methamphetamine. The trial has shot the nation up with a steady pornoholic fix these past five weeks – it has brought us together, crossed barriers of class and race. On the way to court the other day I met a woman of Chatham Islands descent who is learning te reo, and she said everyone at her class discusses the Polkinghorne case in Māori. But Tuesday was stripped of mahimahi, and we only heard of a married couple going about their lives very contentedly.
No rage. No arguments. No simmering resentment about to boil over into an act of violence, police allege, that would leave Pauline dead at 63.
The duty of the Crown is to excite, and inflame; the duty of Polkinghorne’s lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC, is to switch off the engine and bore the courtroom senseless. He achieved that result in his long cross-examination of a police detective. On Monday, in his evidence in chief, Detective Andrew Reeves read out NSFW (not safe for work) messages between Polkinghorne and his long-time companion, sex worker Madison Ashton. On Tuesday, Mansfield asked Reeves if he would be so good as to read out Zzzz messages between Mr and Mrs Polkinghorne.
Pauline Hanna and Philip Polkinghorne at an event in December 2018. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
They texted each other about what was for dinner – rack of lamb, pork ribs, butter chicken, steak with salad. Polkinghorne’s last text sent to Hanna when she was alive: “Picked up drycleaning and hung out washing. Have you had lunch? Ring me when you are on your way back and I can make you poached eggs.”
“Big boy”, she addressed her tiny soulmate. They discussed buying nappies for the grandkids, buying a carpet cleaner, buying pinot and shiraz. “You are beautiful.” They made plans for dinner at Soul Bar and Morrels and the Maple Room. “Darling pie.” They updated each other on the ironing. “Hello beautiful lady…”
It was around about when the correspondence at the supposedly unceasingly scandalous trial of the century touched on the ironing that the public gallery of courtroom 13 began to empty out. This story, too, will likely attract fewer clicks than usual. Oh no! God forbid! But wait. Sex! Sex, in this text from the filthy ophthalmologist: “Airport security thought I was carrying a pistol in my trousers. I said no but going to see the most gorgeous lady on the planet.”
It’s a text to his wife. Not to Madison Ashton. Not to Lee or Alaria or any other of the sex workers named in court…. The watchers in the public gallery got up and wandered away, out into the damp winter’s day and the raindrops hanging heavy on the trees of stately Parliament St. They were disappointed, short-changed. But this is a complex case, a story without a simple outline.
Throughout, the Crown has worked hard to present Polkinghorne, to quote from my own helpful descriptions in past reports, as a “malignant sex dwarf”, an “odious sex midget”, a “repulsive sex gnome”. (More to come, I promise.) Polkinghorne was a bit more than that. He was an admired and brilliant eye surgeon, specialising in the back of the eye, that last little window of optical light under threat of darkness. He worked long hours. Pauline worked even longer hours; she barely seemed to sleep. They were high earners (“Waiting on a f***ing patient”) who took awesome holidays (“There is a new series on Netflix called Emily in Paris and she is having lunch at the spot we went to each other”) and they loved each other.
On April 1, 2021, Polkinghorne texts her that he has fish for dinner. On April 2, Easter Friday, Hanna reports an emergency: Farro Fresh is closed. On April 3, the text about making poached eggs for lunch. On April 4, the last day of her life, there is only one text between them. She writes, “On my way back.” As ever, she adds a row of three love hearts. Happy wife, happy life; but then she drives home, makes dinner (pork strips), watches Netflix (New Amsterdam), and by dawn of Easter Monday, Polkinghorne (wildly unexciting text, February 16, 2020: “Putting bins out”) is a widower.
