Philip Polkinghorne trial: Deleted search history on eye doctor’s phone included ‘leg edema after strangulation’
Friday, 23 August 2024
Sexual images, pornography, deleted searches and numerous messages with sex workers days after his wife had been found dead were found on Philip Polkinghorne’s phone after it was seized following Pauline Hanna’s death.
Shortly after giving an interview to a detective, hours after his wife’s death, the eye surgeon searched “how to delete icloud history. The following day he searched ”leg edema after strangulation“. Both entries had been deleted and recovered by police.
Hanna was found dead in the entranceway of the couple’s Remuera home on April 5, 2021. Polkinghorne, now 71, has denied killing her.
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.
On Friday the focus returned to Hanna and Polkinghorne’s communication devices including their laptops and phones.
‘Leg edema after strangulation’
Eleven days after his wife’s death, Polkinghorne was visited at a St Heliers address by Detective Andrew 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 a number on April 5, at 5.20pm.
'How to delete icloud storage'.
'[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.
Sydney escort Madison Ashton's messages to Polkinghorne
Numerous messages between Polkinghorne and Sydney escort Madison Ashton were read to the jury in the days following Pauline Hanna’s death. 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 and speaks about making lamb shanks for her children - Reeves said he understood her to mean her chihuahua dogs.
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 sends images of herself and links and articles to plastic surgery treatments.
On April 8 at 6.23pm, Polkinghorne tells Ashton his sister spent hours with police that day.
'I have had no contact with the uniformed branch today. Police won't release the PM results to my QC - so he is arranging a second pm. Will call you in a couple of hours.'
On April 10, she texted at 2.31pm 'Hire Zali' - Zali Burrows was a previous lawyer of Polkinghorne.
Later that night at 8.23pm, 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'.
Two days later, Ashton tells Polkinghrone she loves him and “do not wear a f…ing bow tie at the funeral”.
At 10.18pm, the same day as Hanna’s funeral, Polkinghorne asked Ashton if she was free to talk.
The pair went on to talk about flights and domestic matters with Polkinghorne telling Ashton he is “good at ironing and grocery shopping”.
'Are you up?': Polkinghorne messaged sex worker seven days after wife's death
Detective Reeves detailed how he found numerous videos and photos of Ashton and Polkinghorne on his phone. He also found pictures of thousands of other women in various states of undress.
Days after Hanna's death, Polkinghorne messaged a woman previously identified as Rachel - a sex worker on the North Shore.
Reeves said just after 10pm on April 12, Polkinghorne messaged:
'Hi, I know its late, are you up? Was thinking of Ubering over.'
Reeves said there were photos of “Rachel” found on Polkinghorne’s phone too as well as other women who the court previously heard received money from the surgeon.
Pauline Hanna’s despair in 2019
Earlier on Thursday, a letter Hanna wrote to her husband, in 2019 was read to the court. It detailed how she is gutted, he is angry and how she can’t live if their relationship is wrong.
The letter, titled “this is the letter to the person who loves me: I thought that person was you”, was found on Polkinghorne's laptop.
Hanna detailed the relationship and issues they'd faced together. It appears the pair may have had a disagreement before the letter was written.
'Then all hell breaks loose - I have not behaved as he wanted - and I cry - I am gutted, been holding it in for so long.'
'And he is angry and doesn’t want to know me or my issues or me for that matter.
“HURT HURT HURT – in fact wrecked. All these years (27) did I get it wrong that he was the only person who truly loved me as his number 1. 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 stated.
Mansfield asked Constable Madeleine Palmer, who was tasked with examining the laptops, if the letter showed further correspondence between the couple about sharing their issues and feelings in writing.
She agreed.
Mansfield, in reference to the letter and other letters between Polkinghorne and Hanna, suggested, it appeared the couple sat down and penned correspondence to each other outlining what their respective issues were regarding issues in their relationship. Palmer agreed.
Final emails between the couple
The night before Hanna died, she and Polkinghorne exchanged emails about his resignation letter to Auckland Eye.
At 10pm on April 4, Hanna received a letter from Polkinghorne with a document attached titled 'The Chair of Auckland Eye v2'.
Hanna replied at 10.21pm with the attached letter and defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC said the emailed contained the words:
'Darling, here are my changes nothing of substance… see changes in yellow, P.'
At 10.47pm Hanna then sent another email to her husband with 'Does this work' in the subject line.
Mansfield asked if this was the last email she sent to her husband before she lost her life. Palmer said it appeared so.
In emails exchanged on March 28, 2021 in regards to financial matters at Auckland Eye, Hanna sent Polkinghorne an email with 'Darling, some notes, P xx'.
Mansfield also asked the constable about Hanna's deleted search history 'for balance' as much had been made of his client's sexual interest.
The search history showed a number of results for pornography websites, two results using the word 'escort' and some results for the word 'dating'.
The trial before Justice Graham Lang and a jury continues and is in its fourth week.