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WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT
The Philip Polkinghorne case continued in the new courtroom today, approaching the halfway point of the technical hearing, which is expected to take six weeks.
Today, the trial moved from a corridor on the first floor of the High Court at Auckland to a smaller room, Courtroom 13. That’s because Courtroom 11, which is used for the first 14 days of the trial, is being prepared for the sitting of five judges in the Supreme Court at Auckland next week.
The move will mean the courts will have far less room to accommodate the large number of people who come to the hearing, many of whom have nothing to do with the case. Yesterday, they had about 70 more people, and courtroom 13 simply can’t accommodate that many.
At 10am this morning, defence counsel Ron Mansfield KC’s assistant solicitor Hannah Stuart will continue cross-examination of Pauline Hanna’s family doctor of more than a decade.
Stewart spent the afternoon talking to witnesses and systematically studying Hannah’s medical records, discovering that she had been taking the antidepressant fluoxetine for years, as well as diet pills.
Yesterday, the inquest heard that two days before Christmas 2019, Pauline Hanna called her GP to report her Have bad thoughts.
“She was the last person I turned to that day,” the doctor recalled. Hannah’s husband’s murder trialAuckland Philip Polkinghorne, Ophthalmologist.
“She said she was not feeling well, her mother was in hospital, her husband had left her and she was having suicidal thoughts.”
The GP quickly asked: “Do you have any plans (to self-harm)?”
“No,” Hannah said. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
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Polkinghorne’s lawyers have repeatedly mentioned the call, as well as Hannah’s long-standing prescription for antidepressants, in cross-examination throughout the trial, which ends its third week tomorrow. Yesterday, however, was the first time jurors heard directly from Hannah’s doctor about her mental health evaluation.
Polkinghorne, 71, is accused of strangling his wife — possibly while high on methamphetamine during an argument over how much he was spending on sex workers — and then Remulla House He was asked to look like he had committed suicide on Easter Monday 2021. He denied the allegation, and his lawyers argued that Hannah’s mental health history – coupled with the allegedly huge Increased work pressure She was responsible for coordinating the promotion of the new coronavirus vaccine, and suicide was the only reasonable explanation.
The doctor, who cannot be identified because a request for anonymity has not yet been resolved, said he followed up the day after the Dec. 23 call, just before Christmas. The witness recalled Hannah saying she was feeling better and had contacted the crisis team, adding that the patient did not want any more help with the matter.
The doctor said she would likely hear back from the crisis team if the issue wasn’t resolved, but the lack of communication reassured her. She didn’t see Hannah again in the 15 months before her death.
Jurors were previously told that Hannah’s mother suffered from dementia and died two months before her in February 2021. Her husband’s claim of leaving her was based on an incident in 2019, which was explained to jurors by several witnesses, when Hannah said she could not contact her husband for days and had to lie to his family about why he was not with them for Christmas.
Doctors noted that when Hannah visited the clinic in 2001, she was already taking fluoxetine, a more common antidepressant sold under the brand name Prozac. Medical records show she was initially given the drug to stabilize mood swings caused by birth control.
But as she aged, so did her medication and her periodic reported problems with alcohol abuse or depression. The doctor admitted, seemingly reluctantly, that by 2010 her depression could be characterized as “chronic depression.” Antidepressants are not like antibiotics that you only take when you feel better, the doctor said, explaining that 20 years of use of the drug showed it was working as intended.
In 2013 and 2017, Hannah reported drinking up to a bottle of wine a night and often getting drunk, and her doctor prescribed a medication designed to reduce her drinking for about six months. She was also frequently prescribed a weight loss pill.
During cross-examination of the doctor, defence counsel Hannah Stuart pointed out that the literature on antidepressants discouraged mixing antidepressants with alcohol because it was known that mixing enhanced the effects of alcohol, potentially leading to impaired judgement. The doctor was repeatedly accused of being irresponsible in prescribing because Hannah mentioned the drinking problem.
“If you look at what’s on paper, you wouldn’t give anyone anything – not even paracetamol,” she said, explaining that many people use antidepressants and continue to drink without side effects.
“You just have to observe.
“She insisted on continuing to take the medications because there were no side effects.”
The doctor estimated that about half of the people who take Prozac would be able to drink without a problem, and she added that Hannah’s “liver function tests were very good.”
The doctor also disagreed that the diet pills prescribed for Hannah might exacerbate her depression, and did not think it was inappropriate for Hannah to continue taking them, even though they were for obesity and she weighed about 70kg.
“That’s a pretty potent cocktail of drugs, isn’t it?” Stewart asked.
“No,” the doctor replied.
After slowly and methodically going through prescriptions that have been refilled over the years, the defense attorney again asked about the dangers of mixing alcohol and antidepressants.
“Yes, on paper,” the doctor reiterated at the end of the day’s testimony. “In real life, if you knew Pauline Hannah, you would not say that. I don’t think I know how many of you have ever seen Pauline Hannah sitting in front of them, presenting herself the way she is now.
“…This is a real-life phenomenon, and the two can coexist.”
The defense is expected to continue cross-examination tomorrow.
The testimony came after a morning of intense cross-examination of a key witness in the prosecution’s case: a close friend of Hannah’s who said she disclosed that Polkinghorne had tried to strangle her more than a year before her death.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC argued that Hawke’s Bay resident John Riordan had never liked Polkinghorne and that he was simply “whitewashing” – exaggerating – to “frame” the accused. Riordan rejected the idea when his testimony was very similar to his wife’s the day before.
He also rejected the attorney’s suggestion that he had conspired with Hannah’s extended family to orchestrate his testimony — a response to Mansfield pointing out to jurors that the witness had spoken with Hannah’s brother and sister-in-law outside the courthouse the day before. He said he simply asked them how things were going, as a friend should do.
Riordan said he wants to “see the court do justice for Pauline,” but perjury is not how he expects that to be accomplished.
The trial is due to continue in the new courtroom on Friday. Justice Graham Long ended the trial early yesterday so that the largest courtroom in the High Court building could be freed up in preparation for the Supreme Court’s visit. The trial is expected to return to the larger courtroom after a week of hearings before the Wellington Appeal Panel.
Captain Craig is a reporter based in Oakland covering courts and judicial affairs. He joined The Herald He took up the position in 2021 and has covered court news since 2002 from three newsrooms in the United States and New Zealand.
this The Herald Covering the case in a daily podcast, Defendant: Polkinghorne CaseYou can follow the podcast at Love Radio, Apple Podcasts, Spotifypass front page feed, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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