Philip Polkinghorne trial: Cash, meth, sex workers and an unhappy marriage
Saturday, 24 August 2024
Warning: The details of this case may be distressing for some readers.
Money, meth, sex workers and communications were the focus of the fourth week of evidence for the jury hearing the trial of Philip Polkinghorne, the eye surgeon accused of killing his wife and staging it to look like suicide.
Polkinghorne, a 71-year-old eye doctor, has denied murdering his wife Pauline Hanna. She was found dead in the entranceway of their Remuera home on April 5, Easter Monday, in 2021. The trial is under way at the High Court in Auckland.
The Crown’s case is that Polkinghorne fatally strangled Hanna before reporting her death to police as a suicide. It argues he was living a double life, obsessed with meth and in a covert relationship with an escort in Sydney.
Polkinghorne’s defence is that Hanna was exhausted by work-related stress, had a history of mental health issues, was on medication, and tragically took her own life. Ahead of the trial, he pleaded guilty to methamphetamine related charges.
Letters between the couple
In December 2019, Polkinghorne sent Hanna a letter.
“I have felt increasingly devoid in the last few months from our relationship. I feel, rightly or wrongly that I am a spectator rather than a participant,' the letter states.
Polkinghorne went on to say he feels increasingly ignored in the relationship and criticised Hanna’s spending and her asking to borrow money.
“My options it seems are dead simple; either accept my lot or move on, apart.”
He finishes: 'I don't know where the bucketload of love went, but there you have it.'
It appears Hanna replied to the letter with one of her own, with three versions found on her laptop.
'I have read this email and re read it so many times and the devastation I feel that I appear to have let you down so badly. I am gutted you feel you cannot talk to me…I don't know what to say and I don't know how it happened.'
Hanna says she knows the pair have had some “ugly times in the last 18 months” and has attempted to take on board what he asks of her.
“I am sorry - you are everything to me and you have changed. I haven’t, but clearly I have not read you signals.”
Hanna asked if Polkinghorne wanted to make a “change (ie divorce)”, to make that decision before January 31 so she can make arrangements.
“I am 62 in February and I do not have a range of options…Right now I feel very scared, confused, sad and incredibly lonely.”
Under cross-examination, Constable Madeleine Palmer, who conducted the forensic analysis of the pair’s laptops, said she found another letter from Hanna in 2019.
The letter details how she is gutted, he is angry, and how she can’t live if their relationship is wrong.
“I was number 1 in someone’s life as he was in mine - have we got that wrong….I cannot live if that is the result that I got it wrong,” the letter states.
Madison Ashton
Sydney based escort Madison Ashton was frequently mentioned by police officers who deep-dived into Polkinghorne’s laptop and phone.
A sex video of Polkinghorne and Ashton was found on his laptop as well as numerous other sexual photos and videos of her.
The pair also exchanged a number of messages in the days following Hanna’s death. Detective Andrew Reeves said the WhatsApp messages could only be extracted from April 5, as it appeared all previous ones had been deleted.
The afternoon Hanna died, Ashton sent Polkinghorne a link of an image of herself in a swimsuit. A few days later, on April 7, Ashton sends Polkinghorne a link to a Stuff article about how a post-mortem was going to be carried out in relation to Hanna's death.
The following few days, Ashton sent images of herself and links and articles to plastic surgery treatments.
On the evening of April 10, Ashton sent a link to a reddit thread which included a link to a NZ Herald article where he is quoted speaking about Hanna's death and that he is a person of suspect.
Ashton sent two messages:
'Did you give an interview????? Did you use those words!!!!!'
'Person of suspect?!'
Polkinghorne replied: 'What do you think Not a chance'.
Police also found loan agreements, videos of Ashton’s apartment taken by Polkinghorne and other images of her in her bedroom with her dogs, on hard drives and USB devices.
Cash, sex workers and control
In the years preceding Hanna’s death, Polkinghorne transferred just under $300k to six women, including 3 sex workers. He also made cash withdrawals totalling $241,000.
Meanwhile, months before her death, Hanna opened a bank account in her own name and took out two $2000 loans. She used the money to spend on groceries, personal shopping and petrol, forensic accountant Margaret Skilton told the court.
The couple had a net worth of $10.5m and Skilton agreed if the pair had separated, they would be entitled to an equal share.
Skilton said her observation was Polkinghorne had “control” over Hanna’s financial position by being a signatory on a joint account and sole authority on the other accounts.
'It does not appear to me, from bank statements, that Ms Hanna had oversight of any of the activity of the accounts Polkinghorne had sole authority over,' she said.
Under cross-examination, Mansfield tendered to the court Hanna’s bank statements which detailed how she spent thousands of dollars a year on clothing, beauty, hair and dry cleaning.
Internet searches, including deleted ones
The court heard about the internet searches the pair had conducted over the years on their laptops.
In 2020, Hanna visited the Alcoholics Anonymous website, and visited a number of websites about infidelity.
Mansfield tendered a document to the court also showing some of Hanna’s deleted internet search history for “balance”. It included pornographic websites and escorts.
Eleven days after his wife’s death, Polkinghorne was visited at a St Heliers address by Detective Reeves. The detective had been tasked with executing a search warrant to seize the eye surgeon’s phones.
Reeves told prosecutor Brian Dickey, Polkinghorne couldn’t remember his pass code when asked.
Data from the phone showed no messages before April 5 - the day of Hanna’s death.
'I did think that was odd,' Reeves said.
Detective Andrew Reeves told the court there was a number of deleted internet searches on Polkinghorne's phone. Of interest was “how to delete icloud storage” on April 5, at 5.20pm.
'[The time] correlated to the time he left the police station after talking to a detective'.
The following day, Polkinghorne accessed the website duck duck go.
Reeves explained this was a search engine that was specifically designed not to be traceable.
However, Reeves said in this case, the user went through Safari and therefore left a trail.
The search was 'leg edema after strangulation'.
Despite the search being deleted, Reeves said it was able to be recovered.
Methamphetamine at Auckland Eye
Arriving in an unmarked car, a drug testing technician arrived at Auckland Eye in July 2021 to conduct a confidential analysis of the workplace where Polkinghorne had worked as an eye surgeon months after he’d disclosed methamphetamine use to a colleague.
Drug testing technician Jeremy Hill said there was one room where there was an area of 'concerning contamination' of methamphetamine. Previous witnesses from Auckland Eye have told the court consult room 4 was used by Polkinghorne up until Hanna's death. He didn't return to work after April 5, 2021.
Auckland Eye’s clinical services manager Janet Wigmore, told the court how she arrived at work on a Monday morning in October 2020 to find a meth pipe and lighter on a table in a laser room.
Clinical services manager Tracey Molloy said she reviewed CCTV footage from the weekend. Polkinghonre, the CEO, CFO and cleaners had been in over the weekend.
Molloy said Polkinghorne was there as late as 10pm that night and was seen with two people going towards consult room 4, but the CCTV didn’t capture anything further.
Under cross-examination, Mansfield said the independent investigation confirmed Polkinghorne attended to a patient on both the Saturday and Sunday, according to his patient records.
A picture of a similar meth pipe was found on one of Polkinghorne’s hard drives in an image with Madison Ashton.
The trial, before Justice Graham Lang and a jury, continues on Monday.