The Surgeon’s Secrets: Guilty of Infidelity or Innocent of Murder?

One of New Zealand’s most famous eye surgeons, Philip Polkinghorne, was acquitted of the murder of his wife, Pauline Hanna, after a highly publicised eight-week trial. Since the beginning of the case after Hannah’s death in 2021, the mystery ensnared the nation as details of Polkinghorne’s secret life were disclosed, including his use of methamphetamine and relationships with sex workers.

The prosecution described that Polkinghorne had strangled his wife and then made the death appear to be a suicide. Erratic behavior, financial problems, and an attempt to destroy evidence by wiping his phone clean made it hard to view Polkinghorne as innocent. If being in a secret relationship with Madison Ashton – a Sydney escort – was not bad enough, the court was also told that he sent more than $100,000 to Ashton and made arrangements to see her again, not long after Hannah died.

Additionally, he had transferred a total of $300,000 to various women, three of whom were sex workers. The prosecution painted a picture of a man whose double life was increasingly hard to juggle around, culminating in the alleged murder.

The defense, however, argued that Hanna’s death was suicide, citing struggles with depression and the stressors from her job as an executive in the health sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. They declared she had been working up to 100 hours a week during the vaccine rollout and had struggled with her mental health, already having once tried to take her life before. Forensic experts testified that her injuries were consistent with hanging and found no evidence of a struggle that showed foul play.

While the jury indeed ruled in Polkinghorne’s favour, the case leaves an eerie and lingering mystery — only he truly knows what happened that day.