Murder-accused Philip Polkinghorne has placed his head in his hands, loudly sobbing as his 111 call to report his wife’s death in April 2021 was again played to jurors.
The 71-year-old’s face was red as he grabbed for tissues next to his desk at the High Court in Auckland.
His crying intensified and pierced the courtroom, forcing a break within seconds of the playback ending, and he was guided away by security, still crying.
Shortly before the 111 call, the jury officially retired to consider his fate.
Jurors are deciding whether to back the Crown’s version of events that he fatally strangled Pauline Hanna and made it look like a suicide, or whether to back Polkinghorne’s defence that his wife ended her own life and he found her already dead.
The jury retired at 10.23am.
The 11 jury members headed for the jury room carrying large armfuls of documents and folders.
Some briefly returned to collect handfuls of pens and highlighters.
After the break for Polkinghorne, he and the jurors returned to the courtroom to again hear a recording of Hanna’s voice from 2019.
This was the so-called Longlands Recording, the recording made while she was talking to family at her brother’s home in Hawke’s Bay.
For some time, Polkinghorne’s head was again in his hands.
Hanna’s voice rang across the courtroom, calling her husband “an angry man” while Polkinghorne sat with his eyes closed.
At one point, she called him hurtful.
But at another point in the recording, Hanna said, “I am his brick, he is mine” and that she loves him.
While listening to the recording, Polkinghorne grabbed for some more tissues.
He sat looking down and forward with his chin resting in his hands.
The jury then returned to the jury room after the Longlands Recording finished playing.
Just ahead of both recordings being played, Justice Graham Lang detailed for the jury the so-called non-specific injuries Hanna had on her body. It’s uncertain how they happened.
The injuries on Hanna were:
- Four bruises to her left arm.
- A 5cm x 2cm bruise to her right temple.
- A scrape to her back.
- An abrasion to her nose.
The trial, originally expected to last six weeks, is now in its eighth.
