The Philip Polkinghorne case has ended at the High Court in Auckland with a verdict of not guilty to both murder and manslaughter.
The weeks-long murder trial capped more than three years of investigation and legal proceedings.
Here’s a timeline of events from the morning police were called to the moment the jury’s verdict was delivered.
April 5, 2021: Philip Polkinghorne calls emergency services to the Upland Rd home he shared with his wife Pauline Hanna, saying she’d killed herself.
April 16, 2021: Police hand the Remuera property back to Polkinghorne after examination. They’re suspicious.
August 16, 2022: Polkinghorne is arrested and charged with murdering Hanna. He appears at Auckland District Court later that day.
August 31, 2022: Polkinghorne makes another appearance, this time in the High Court at Auckland, and pleads not guilty.
July 29, 2024: Polkinghorne’s murder trial begins. He admits to possessing meth and a meth pipe. The public learns he’s accused of strangling Hanna.
August 7, 2024: A detective described going to a lakeside lodge where Polkinghorne was staying with a high-end Australian escort weeks after Hanna’s death.
August 8, 2024: Jurors heard the end of Polkinghorne’s police interview from April 2021, and heard a recording of Hanna calling her husband a “sex fiend”.
August 9, 2024: The jury, lawyers and the judge took a field trip and visited the scene of the alleged crime.
August 14, 2024: A friend of Hanna’s dramatically re-enacted a strangling in court: “She described to us that Philip had done this to her.”
August 15, 2024: Hanna’s GP told the court that Hanna once called her and said she had “some suicidal thoughts”.
August 21, 2024: The jury heard Polkinghorne transferred tens of thousands of dollars to various women, including Australian escort Madison Ashton.
August 30, 2024: Polkinghorne’s defence team began their rebuttal, arguing there was no evidence of a crime being committed.
September 6, 2024: Pathologist professor Stephen Cordner, the defence’s star witness, said there was no evidence strangulation had occurred.
September 16, 2024: The Crown began its closing argument: “As he blamed her in life, he blames her in death.”
September 17, 2024: The defence began its closing argument, criticising “the murder the police wrote”.
September 19, 2024: The jury begins its deliberations.
September 23, 2024: Polkinghorne found not guilty of both murder and manslaughter.
November 2024: Polkinghorne will return to court for sentencing on the two methamphetamine charges he pleaded guilty to at the start of the trial.
