Steve Braunias: Inside the Polkinghorne trial

It was a trial that dominated the news agenda for two months - former eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne accused of murdering his senior health administrator wife, Pauline Hanna.

It had all the features that grab attention, a high flying, wealthy couple, sex workers and drugs use.

Polkinghorne's defence was that his wife committed suicide. He was found not guilty of her murder.

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New Zealand Herald columnist at the time, Steve Braunias was at the High Court for eight weeks writing a diary of the case and has published a book about it.

The central figure in the trial was not Philip Polkinghorne, it was Pauline Hanna, Braunias told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.

“She was ever-present in my mind when I was writing these things. And indeed, at one point, I remember there was an afternoon session which ended early. And I went south to see a friend of mine being sworn in as a judge.

“And it was like a little break from the trial, which I hadn't anticipated. But it didn't feel like a break at all. In fact, as the train went south, I kept thinking of how much the trial was affected by a kind of sickness, a kind of terror about Pauline and the way she died.”

Braunias got to know Polkinghorne quite well during the trial, he says.

“He was chatty, he was funny, he was thoughtful. I thought that was a striking part of his character that other witnesses, some called by the prosecution, actually remarked on how much they liked him and how thoughtful he was. He's a complicated guy. He certainly had, you know, enthusiasms which went way too far.”

The prosecution’s failure to provide compelling forensic evidence was key in the trial, he says.

“You wouldn't have thought going into the trial that it was going to be such an uphill battle, that they were going to fall at the crucial hurdle of providing forensic evidence. And that's really what it came down to.”

The jury, he sensed, disliked Polkinghorne.

“I do wonder whether their verdict was delivered with a kind of profound reluctance in as much it seemed evident to me during the trial that they did not like the accused based on what they were hearing. They did not like him one bit.

“But reasonable doubt is a powerful tenet, and it was introduced to devastating effect by Ron Mansfield KC, Polkinghorne's lawyer, and they were bound by it.

“They had to acknowledge that the reasonable doubt that he had established meant that they only had one choice, and that was to come up with that verdict.”

Once forensics came up short, the prosecution had no choice but to change tack, he says.

“The Crown prosecutor said during the trial, more or less, forget the forensic evidence, it's not that important, trying to sort of sweep it under the carpet.”

They based their case on a “lurid and very compelling narrative” about Polkinghorne’s extra marital activities, he says.

“That Polkinghorne murdered his wife so he could be with the woman he loved, Madison Ashton, and that, in fact, he did not rate or value or respect his marriage to Pauline, evidenced by his enthusiastic employment of sex workers.

“They spent a lot of time doing that, and it made great copy, it made incredible headlines, and so forth. But quite often you were sitting there thinking how's this apropos the murder of Pauline Hanna?

“And I guess that was the question which could not be answered satisfactorily.”

After the trial, Braunias asked Polkinghorne directly whether he did it.

“You knew he was going to say he didn't. What surprised me, and I guess disappointed me, was the way Philip, denies absolutely everything that went on in this trial.”

Polkinghorne pleaded guilty to the possession of 37.7 grams of methamphetamine which he has since denied, Braunias says.

“His line was, oh, you know, I was persuaded and talked into entering that plea by my defence lawyers, but it wasn't mine. It was probably Pauline's.

“And you just think, oh, that's a really poor show. You know, you shouldn't say things like that. No one accepted that it was Pauline's. Everybody accepted that it was his. He was sentenced for that.”

Polkinghorne -Inside the trial of the century by Steve Braunias, is published by Allen and Unwin.