Philip Polkinghorne on the first day of his trial for the murder of his wife. Photo: RNZ/Nick Monro
Warning: This story mentions suicide.
The High Court in Auckland has heard that police intercepted Philip Polkinghorne's calls for weeks following his wife's death.
The Crown argues that Polkinghorne, a former eye surgeon, murdered Pauline Hanna on Easter Monday in 2021 and staged it as a suicide.
Polkinghorne's defence argues she committed suicide after struggles with depression and pressures from her work in managing the Covid-19 vaccine rollout during the pandemic.
During cross-examination of senior sergeant Chris Allan, one of the detectives investigating the case, jurors heard that Polkinghorne's phone was lawfully intercepted following Hanna's death.
Allan said a search surveillance device warrant was issued on 6 April, and was effective for 21 days.
Jurors have been told that in one intercepted call, Philip Polkinghorne called pathologist Rexon Tse to ask for a second autopsy.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC said the call was made on the afternoon of 8 April, which detective senior sergeant Chris Allan confirmed during cross-examination.
Allan conceded that at that time, Polkinghorne had not yet been informed by police of any preliminary findings of an autopsy of Hanna done on 6 April.
Crown's last witness: Digital forensic analyst
Jun Lee, a digital forensic analyst from the police's national high tech crime group, was called in last minute by the Crown to give evidence on activities on Hanna's mobile phone, before she died.
Lee had been tasked with analysing background data from Hanna's iPhone.
He said raw database from the phone showed there was no user interaction with the phone after 10.47pm, the night before Hanna was found dead.
He said the data he analysed would have picked up any sort of interaction, including any unlocking of the screen, any movement of the phone or use of applications on the phone.
On Tuesday, the defence presented evidence during cross-examination claiming that Hanna composed a message on her phone around 4am, on the morning she was found dead.
During examination by Ron Mansfield KC, Lee was asked whether in his experience, the background data has ever been unreliable, to which Lee said no.
Mansfield also asked whether the phone log entry would register if someone started to create a message but later abandoned it.
Lee said that draft would not have been recorded on the phone, as the iOS system - unlike the Android system - does not save drafts of messages that were not sent.
On Thursday, the cross-examination of Lee will continue, and the defence is expected to begin its opening statements.
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