Philip Polkinghorne trial: Crown says accused was a 'master manipulator'

• It is the eighth week of the trial of former Auckland eye surgeon, Philip Polkinghorne, accused of murdering his wife, Pauline Hanna, in 2021.
• The Crown argues he staged her death as a suicide after a possibly drug-fuelled altercation.
• The defence claims she committed suicide after a history of mental health issues.

The Crown has closed its case in the murder trial of Philip Polkinghorne, saying he was a master manipulator who had the time and knowledge to stage his wife's death.

The public gallery at the Auckland High Court is full for the final days of the trial of Philip Polkinghorne, accused of murdering Pauline Hanna in 2021.

Delivering the last of the Crown's closing arguments, prosecutor Alysha McClintock said there were too many aspects of the scene where Hanna was found that did not add up.

She said Polkinghorne has been proved to be a master manipulator, who was awake throughout that night, and knew he had until Hanna's personal training appointment at 9am to stage her death.

"In simple terms his wife has died on a night when it is clear he is awake most of the night. He was inexplicably had his phone on airplane mode, and he has had time to do all these things."

McClintock said Polkinghorne did not expect police trawling through his house for the next 11 days, finding aspects of the scene that didn't add up.

"In the mix he hasn't tidied up this upstairs room, hasn't flushed the toilet - perhaps he forgot, perhaps he ran out of time. It matters not.

"But I suggest you can bet he did not expect police to be trawling through that house, and trawling through that house in the way that they did for the next 11 days. He expected the rubber stamp: suicide."

She said his three hour police interview the morning of Hanna's death was a deflection from the scene.

"The scene those first responders went to that morning was a deception."

"If she had [committed suicide], it should have been obvious that she had. But it wasn't obvious. You've got police, forensic scientists, combing through it struggling to make sense of it. Because it didn't make sense."

She said the reason police and experts were confused about the way the rope Pauline Hanna was said to have used was tied, was because Polkinghorne was trying to recount a lie.

"The reason for that, I suggest, is that it's a fake rope. It is not one that was used to hang Pauline Hanna at all."

She said his alleged staging of the scene and conduct after her death - meeting with sex worker Madison Ashton soon after - proved his manipulation.

"It is telling against him as the master manipulator."

McClintock finished her arguments stating that Polkinghorne had the "intelligence, arrogance, and meth-fuelled current" to commit murder.

"He blamed Pauline Hanna a lot in life, you can see it in the letter he wrote her. It is the final insult to her to blame her for own death.

"I suggest, members of the jury, that the evidence that you have heard proves the lie that Dr Polkinghorne told when he rung 111 and said that she had hung herself.

"I suggest you can safely be sure on this evidence that he is guilty of murder."

The defence is due to make its final statements shortly before the judge sums the case up for the jury.