Polkinghorne murder trial: Jury to revisit audio evidence before deliberations

The jury in the trial of former Auckland eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne will revisit pieces of audio evidence before deliberating their verdict.

The Crown has argued that Polkinghorne killed his wife Pauline Hanna in their Remuera home in April 2021 after a possible violent struggle, while he may have been under the influence of methamphetamine.

Polkinghorne's defence has maintained that Hanna died by suicide after many years of struggling with depression, compounded by work-related stress during the pandemic.

The trial has spanned eight weeks, and has heard from more than 80 witnesses.

The jury of three men and eight woman will on Thursday listen to a secret recording of Hanna - the Longlands recording - that was earlier played in court, where she told relatives that Polkinghorne was a "sex fiend" and had sex with other women.

They will also revisit Polkinghorne's call to emergency services after his alleged discovery of Hanna's body.

During Justice Graham Lang's summing up of the case, he reminded jurors that their role was to stick to the factual evidence before them, and to deliberate on whether the Crown had met the burden of proof "beyond reasonable doubt" that Polkinghorne killed Hanna.

"Firstly you must ensure that evidence has been reliably established, before you draw any conclusion or inference from it, secondly you must ensure that the conclusion or inference that you draw, is logical and reasonable," he said.

Justice Lang acknowledged that the nature of case - whether it be the discussions of suicide, or talk of Polkinghorne's relationship with sex workers and his drug use - all evoked strong feelings, but urged jurors to leave their sympathy and prejudice aside.

In what is largely a circumstantial case against Polkinghorne, Justice Lang asked the jury to be cautious about making inferences - for instance, how they would treat the evidence of Hanna telling her friends in 2020 that Polkinghorne had attempted to strangle her.

"What you do need to bear in mind, it is just one piece of the overall pool of evidence, don't leap to the conclusion that because he's made that motion on one other occasion, that he must have killed Ms Hanna on the 5th of April, 2021," He said.

He also asked jurors to scrutinise the reliability and credibility of witnesses' testimonies.

Justice Lang raised the example of Hanna's sister Tracey Hanna's claims of Hanna speaking of a suicide attempt in 1992 - which was challenged by the Crown, and had no other witnesses supporting it.

He told the jury that the expectation for now is that they would give a unanimous verdict, however if they had been deliberating for a considerable period, a majority verdict would be brought in - requiring a consensus across 10 jurors.