A star defence witness in the Philip Polkinghorne trial says there is no evidence to support Pauline Hanna was strangled to death.
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Pathologist Professor Stephen Cordner, from Australia, is continuing to give evidence at the High Court in Auckland.
He has a long history of high-level appointments and top recognitions.
“What would you say the cause of death is,” he was asked by defence lawyer Ron Mansfield.
“The findings support hanging,” Cordner said, adding there’s no finding that can support a killing from manual or ligature strangulation.
Cordner was called in by the defence to consider whether Hanna’s death at Easter 2021 was homicide or suicide.
Polkinghorne says he found her already dead after he woke up in their home in Auckland’s Remuera.
But the Crown’s case is that a suicide does not add up.
It says Polkinghorne, 71, killed his wife and staged it to look like a suicide while he was caught in a web of meth use, infidelity and money woes.
His defence has painted a picture of his wife working long hours in a high stress job, who had attempted suicide before and was on anti-depressants.
When he started his evidence on Wednesday Cordner warned the jury he would have to talk about “pretty grim” content.
Much of his evidence cannot be reported after a suppression order was issued by Justice Lang.
Earlier in the trial, a pathologist called by the Crown who carried out the post-mortem couldn’t pinpoint either suicide or strangulation.
“I don’t prefer one over the other … I cannot rule out one over the other,” Dr Kilak Kesha said.
Cordner today told jurors there were no injuries found on Hanna indicating any past assaults.
He reiterated his belief that Hanna, 63, died in the hours close to when Polkinghorne called 111.
Asked by Mansfield what he would have reported the death as if he had attended the scene, Cordner said he would have concluded death by hanging.
“Because the findings fit with hanging and there are no findings to support the alternative of homicidal ligature or manual strangulation,” he said.
Crown cross-examination
Under cross-examination, Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock contrasted Cordner’s evidence with that of the Crown witnesses.
“It’s perfectly reasonable for people to have different points of view, and other people will work out which point of view is preferred,” he said.
The Crown in its cross-examination focused on several injuries seen on Hanna in the post-mortem.
These are known as non-specific injuries, or injuries where it cannot be known what caused them.
Among them was a bruise on her temple, abrasions to her nose, and four bruises on the back of her right arm.
It was known Hanna got a Covid-19 vaccine shortly before her death.
But Cordner said he doubted that would explain the cluster of bruises on the arm.
The trial has also heard the person who gave the vaccine could not recall which arm was used.
McClintock put it to the witness that there were now three injuries that could have happened in a similar time-frame before death.
Cordner replied this was the case.
But he did not think the arm bruising, when viewed on its own, was from an assault.
He said earlier some of the injuries could also have happened after death.
McClintock then turned to blood found in between Hanna’s fingers, which led to heightened tensions.
“The way I have thought about this is just probably, at some point, the hand has somehow got close to the ear,” Cordner told the Crown.
This was in reference to ear bleeding.
“The only place we have blood is in between the fingers and not otherwise on her hand,” McClintock said.
“But as a pathologist you can’t discount that hand has been cleaned?”
Cordner said he imagined that possibility had already been looked into, but he could not say no.
He told McClintock at one point her questions were drawing a long bow and that she was “going where you think you should go”.
Defence lawyer Mansfield then stood to query McClintock’s answers.
McClintock said she was not suggesting Hanna was drugged but that it was known she had twice the recommended level of a sedative her in system. “You don’t know for sure what body position she was in at the time she suffered that neck condition,” she suggested.
The trial was earlier told Hanna had a high level of zopiclone.
“It may have impacted the ability to resist,” McClintock suggested to Cordner.
“It may have, it may not have, it may have had little or no effect,” he replied.
McClintock then asked if he had factored in the use of methamphetamine by a person “manipulating a body”.
She then questioned Cordner about his belief that Hanna died from hanging.
“I’ve approached this as a total, so there is a train of thought that leads to hanging as a cause of death,” he replied.
“If you come at it from the point of view there are no signs of manual or ligature strangulation, there is a mark on the front of the neck that is compatible with hanging, there is compression of the neck, there is lividity [blood pooling in the body] compatible.”
McClintock put it to Cordner that the pathology was neutral in the case, in that it could rule neither suicide nor hanging.
“You would disagree with that?” she asked.
“I would,” the professor said.
Re-examined by the defence, Cordner said he would expect a person to wake “immediately” if assaulted whether on sleeping medication or not.
“What do we know about whether they’re likely to resist either being pinned down or pressure being applied to their neck?” Mansfield asked.
“I can’t see any reason not to suppose a person in that situation wouldn’t be resisting as soon as they wake up,” Cordner replied. “My conclusion was hanging,” he said, before his evidence came to a close.
The trial was initially expected to last six weeks, which was reached on Friday.
The jury has been told the case will be running longer.
