Philip Polkinghorne verdict: Remuera eye surgeon acquitted of murder, convicted on methamphetamine charges

Polkinghorne’s trial, which drew a near-overflow crowd most days in the largest courtroom in the court complex, captivated the nation as prosecutors delved into salacious details of his alleged “double life” under the leadership of a high-profile Sydney escort Madison Ashton.

Police became suspicious of the ophthalmologist within hours of his 111 call on March 5, 2021, and reported that Pauline Hanna, 63, had fatally hanged herself in the hallway of her $5 million Remuera home.

Detectives quickly figured out that the bright orange nylon rope tied to the upstairs railing seemed too loose to support the man’s weight. Upstairs, in the guest room where Polkinghorne said his wife slept alone, the ottoman had fallen over and the bed was dirty – the top sheet was missing and the duvet and pillows were on the floor.

Crown attorney Alysha McClintock suggested during her closing argument in September that Polkinghorne was caught off guard by police suspicions – expecting authorities to “rule stamp” the death as a suicide because of his standing in the community. But as they continued to investigate the circumstances of the death, more suspicious behavior was revealed.

Financial records show he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on prostitutes in recent years. More than $100,000 was given to Madison, with whom he shared hundreds of intimate WhatsApp messages and secretly flew in for a Christmas 2019 visit. Ashton, who was scheduled to testify as a Crown witness but could not be located, said Herald in an interview that they were in a serious relationship since 2017, but broke up in 2021, some time after Hanna’s death. She described Polkinghorne as a “liar” who told her that he and his wife were divorced and Hanna was living with another man.

Prosecutors speculate that Polkinghorne may have been under the influence of methamphetamine when he killed Hanna in the guest room – either by attacking her as they argued about her secrets or by secretly climbing on top of her while she slept and forcefully choking her. He then took her body downstairs and staged a suicide scene, they alleged.

Phone records show he put his phone on “airplane mode” for the first time in 12 months just hours before calling the police. The day after her death, after a long police interrogation, he searched the Internet for “leg swelling after strangulation.” Two of Hanna’s longtime friends testified that a year before her death she had given a scream in which she stated that her husband had strangled her and threatened to do it again.

But defense lawyer Ron Mansfield KC dismissed the salacious details as an attempt by authorities to circumvent justice when they had no proof that a killing had occurred.

He pointed to Hanna’s decades-long battle with depression, which he believes was exacerbated by the recent death of her mother and her stressful job helping manage the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine. Hanna’s younger sister flew from Britain to give evidence for the defense, telling jurors that Hanna had screamed suicidal in the early 1990s after her father’s death.

Her doctor was also called in December 2019, during Polkinghorne’s secret meeting with Ashton, during which Hanna stated she had considered driving her car into an oncoming truck while driving to Coromandel for the couple’s bach. She said she felt depressed because her mother was sick and her husband left her, but she did not get rid of suicidal thoughts because of her family and fear of being hurt.

Letters recovered from her laptop showed other moments of self-doubt and references to self-harm.

“Despite my efforts, I am never good enough – today is the 25th day in a row – but I add no value,” she wrote in an e-mail to herself a year before her death, noting that she was tired and not alone after working “15/6 hours x4 over Easter”. “I desperately want to tell someone, cry and ask for help, but everyone seems to think I’m amazing and don’t want to know that I have weaknesses and flaws.

“I tried to talk to Philip but he told me he didn’t have time to think about the negatives today – he’s had enough. I have to stand on my own two feet, but today I don’t know if I have two feet or what they look like.

“So I had 3 glasses of wine and a beautiful dinner thanks to PJP (Polkinghorne’s initials) – but I don’t know what to do with myself… So I’ll go to sleep and I won’t sleep. V. unusual for me – and it’s accumulating – who knows what may happen. I have to tell someone, even if no one but God sees it.”

Polkinghorne cried as the letter was read aloud during the trial.

The defense also pointed to a dangerous cocktail of depression, weight loss and sleeping pills in Hanna’s system that several psychiatrists said could have put her at greater risk of suicide.

However, the centerpiece of the defense case was the pathology evidence.

Four pathologists were called to the witness stand – two by the Crown and two by the defense. They all acknowledged that it is rare for a person to be fatally strangled without noticeable internal injuries or defensive wounds. Only two of the four remembered a single murder, a strangulation that left no traces.

Ultimately, jurors seemed skeptical of both sides. In a note sent to the judge at the beginning of the second day of deliberations, the group said most of them did not believe there was sufficient evidence to support the defense’s claim that Hanna committed suicide. But some in the group also did not believe the Crown had proven that Polkinghorne caused his wife’s death.

Judge Lang noted that the burden of proof rests solely with the Crown. A few hours later they found Polkinghorne innocent.

Although Polkinghorne’s guilty plea to two drug charges at the start of his trial obliterated the spotlight on them in the weeks that followed, drug use remained a central focus of the murder trial.

The Crown suggested that the surgeon had developed a serious habit which caused him to behave more erratically in the months leading up to Hanna’s death. They noted that the 37 grams found at his home represented approximately 370 doses with a street value of more than $10,000.

We spent days trying to convince the jury that a Sweet Puff meth pipe. found abandoned at the Polkinghorne Eye Clinic in 2020 was his. However, he insisted this was not the case and the problem was never definitively resolved.

Meanwhile, the defense downplayed his drug use.

During cross-examination of witnesses, Mansfield suggested that his client was a recreational drug user who happened to buy the drug in bulk because that’s what you do when you’re rich – you make one big purchase rather than many small ones because it reduces the risk.

Throughout the trial, the defense also suggested that Hanna also used methamphetamine recreationally. The autopsy found no traces of methamphetamine in her system. A six-month-old hair sample also showed no evidence of methamphetamine use, but the defense pointed out that she dyed her hair twice a month, which could cause false negative results.

Internet searches conducted on Hanna’s phone and laptop revealed naivety about the drug.

On Christmas Eve 2020, less than three months before her death, she conducted three searches back to back: “p pipe”, “what does p look like” and “what does p feel like to you?”. There were photos taken on her phone on Christmas Day of two used methamphetamine pipes believed to have been found in the couple’s home.

Meanwhile, Polkinghorne’s devices included a screenshot showing instructions showing how to make a meth pipe from the bulb. It was first shared on New Year’s Eve 2019 and last viewed in February 2021.

Prosecutors showed jurors a photo of Ashton topless, lying on her stomach in bed, with her Chihuahua lying next to her. The photo, one of thousands of Ashton found among Polkinghorne’s devices, also showed a “Sweet Puff” methamphetamine pipe lying on a bedside table next to a pair of colorful socks similar to those the defendant wore every day during the trial.

In a recent interview with HeraldAshton she confirmed that she would smoke methamphetamine with Polkinghorne and became so concerned about his use that she texted a warning to his son in 2021. She said she believed he developed a serious drug addiction in 2018.

During the trial, the jurors also heard, among others: Auckland Eye Clinical Director, Susan Ormondeanother ophthalmologist who described how Polkinghorne admitted to using methamphetamine while visiting her property the day before his wife’s funeral.

She said she was shocked by the disclosure. She recalled that he made it seem like both he and Hanna were on drugs.

“He asked if we had ever tried meth,” Ormonde said, explaining that she told him she and her husband had not tried it.

“You should,” she recalled his response.

Craig Captain is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. Joined Herald in 2021, and has reported on the courts since 2002 at three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

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