Retired eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne has pleaded not guilty to murdering his 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.
And so now the defence – the songs of innocence, the alibis, the denials – is under way in the murder trial of Dr Philip Polkinghorne at the High Court in Auckland, thatfaux old pile of bricks festooned with Anton Teutenberg’s gargoyles which have witnessed so much since they were sculpted in the 1860s but never saw anything quite like this vulgar and wildly gossipacious case of the ophthalmologist accused of killing his wife.
Week six begins on Monday. The last time I reported on a murder trial as long was way back in 2005 when Samurai swordsman Antonie Dixon set about achieving a rare paradox – he was an insane sonofabitch who attempted to impersonate an insane sonofabitch.But that was simple compared with Polkinghorne. Dixon was poor white trash, tied to a clothesline and beaten as a kid. He did worse unto others. Polkinghorne was high society, a skilled eye surgeon who made life immeasurably better for patients afraid of going blind, just another anonymous and blameless Merc-driving capitalist schnook – until April 5, 2021, when he dialled 111 and said: “My wife’s dead. She hanged herself.”
Murder, alleges the Crown, who threw everything at Polkinghorne these past five weeks.Some of it was CSI (probable traces of blood over two tiles across the grout in the en suite bathroom, a cut on Polkinghorne’s head variously described by witnesses as “a laceration”, “an abrasion”, “a scrape”, “a scratch”) and much of it was OMG (Polkinghorne’s hooker bill was estimated at $296,646.23, police described a video of him lying in bed at his Remuera home while his amour Madison Ashton walked naked around it). Throughout, prosecutors Alysha McClintock and Brian Dickey methodically set out all the sometimes ill-fitting bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence, and stitch by stitch knitted ye olde scarlet letter of shame; throughout, defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, danced like a bear in and out of the incriminating claims, yelled at witnesses, concentrated hard, consulted with his right-hand man Harrison Smith who actually sits at his left, and kept trial-fit by chomping down hard on his beloved royal gala apples which are as spinach to pump up Popeye.
But all that was the roles and rules and regulations of the opening five weeks. A trial is a debate, for and against; in courtroom 11, the moot is Polkinghorne. The Crown closed its case on Friday morning. Since that moment, it’s now the turn of the defence to patiently lay out its evidence, and for Mansfield to ask witnesses questions that he already knows the answers to; and it’s now the turn of McClintock and Dickey to dance, to think on their feet, perchance to yell. They are quite good at yelling. Over the years I have seen them yell their heads off in court, seemingly repulsed by the sight and sound of whatever poor wretch is in the witness box; of course it’s for effect but only a simpleton would think of court as some kind of rousing little drama, as some kind of game. All murder trials are the admin of something terrible.
Pauline Hanna was 63 when she died. She is the reason for the trial. It’s held over her dead body, an elegant, successful, funny, vulnerable woman who was much-loved and much hurt, who knew she drank too much, who worked such long hours that she barely seemed to sleep, who acknowledged her position as a trophy wife, who enjoyed shopping for the same junk that everyone else in her $200,000+ salary bracket bought from Karen Walker, Mi Piaci, Trelise Cooper, Smith & Caughey, Swarovski and Paris department store Galeries Lafayette in the 9th arrondissement which you simply must visit when you next summer in Europe, darling.
She was kind. She was sweet. She wrote a kind of memoir when she was at a low ebb in her life and its 3000 words made for desperately sad reading – her mother didn’t love her, she had no friends as a kid, she was a fatty who endured a relationship with some loser until Polkinghorne turned up and swept her off her feet. She made internet searches for recipes (pappardelle, salmon quiche) and literature (Proust, Flaubert). She kept a can of Raid by the bed to combat mosquitoes. She routinely spent more than $3000 per appointment at the Palm Clinic, “a centre of excellence for Veins, Anti-Wrinkle Treatments, Dermal Fillers, Laser Treatments, Cosmetic Surgery, Liposuction, and Beauty Therapy”.
You get the picture of her lifestyle, but what about the life, cut short at 63? She remained a kind of blank canvas during the prosecution’s case against her husband. Who was Pauline Hanna? More to come, perhaps, as the defence stages its songs of innocence.
I opened the hotel room curtains and gazed at the long snow-white line of the Southern Alps. I looked at the slow-running waters of the Avon stroking the soft, green banks of the river.
It was with a heavy heart that I missed the opening day of Polkinghorne’s defence to appear at the Christchurch Word literary festival. I write this in my ninth-floor room of the Crowne Plaza on Friday afternoon; earlier today I was interviewed onstage about my latest book of true-crime writings The Survivors: Stories of Death and Desperation (HarperCollins, $39.99) – a perfect gift for Father’s Day, buy one now, even better gift for Xmas, buy several and disperse. It was a really good session. There was a long signing queue afterwards. Each person made me feel like I was back in the High Court because each person wanted to talk about Polkinghorne.
Philip Polkinghorne and his defence team, including Ron Mansfield, KC (left), arriving at the High Court in Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
They were fascinated, appalled; when I arrived in Christchurch, I wondered whether maybe the Polkinghorne trial was only of particular interest in Auckland, the setting of the scandal (sex workers, methamphetamine) and the shopping (Sylvia Park, Commercial Bay). But the good people of Christchurch who I met after my event were just as glued to it as anyone in Auckland. I guess it’s a nationwide sensation. Someone from the Guardian emailed an interview request on Thursday: “It’s for a cultural commentary piece (primarily for an international audience) on how and why the trial has captivated New Zealand.”
Most of the captivation, though, buys into all the sticky filth spread these past five weeks by the Crown in open court. “The police have upturned his life,” Mansfield told the jury on the very first day of the trial of the century. He returned to that theme on Friday. I longed to be in courtroom 11 to hear his opening address but like every other person in New Zealand with a Polkinghorne fix, I had to settle for reading about it on the Herald’s live blog, which recorded Mansfield claiming the police were so “intoxicated” by their discoveries of sex and drugs that they lacked the sense to seriously regard it as a suicide.
The cornerstone of every criminal defence under Westminster law is engraved with two words: “Prove it!” Mansfield’s position is that the Crown has only proved that Polkinghorne quite liked methamphetamine, really liked sex workers, and especially liked Madison Ashton. “Let’s come up with home duties and who does what”, Polkinghorne messaged Ashton about a fortnight after Pauline’s death; she messaged back saying she couldn’t wait for him to meet her dogs. The messages appear to be describing the prospect of a de facto relationship. “Honestly,” she wrote to Polkinghorne, “I love you.”
All of it, maybe, “a distraction”, as Mansfield put it. He will call 22 witnesses. The first six appeared on Friday. The trial resumes on Monday. I will put aside my outrage that it was held on Friday in my absence, and resume my seat at the press bench. Mustn’t miss another moment.
