Murder-accused Philip Polkinghorne appeared distressed, emotional and was crying as emails by his late wife were read out in his trial this afternoon.
Warning: This article contains content that could be disturbing to some people.
The retired eye surgeon denies killing his wife and making it look like a suicide at Easter 2021.
His defence is he woke to find Pauline Hanna, 63, already dead in their home in Auckland’s Remuera.
He called 111 to say that she hanged herself.
But the Crown has maintained from the trial’s outset that a suicide does not add up.
Emails and other contents from his and Hanna’s phones and computers have already been presented in the trial as part of the Crown’s evidence.
But other emails, obtained by the defence, were read out on Tuesday in the High Court at Auckland in the seventh week of the trial.
The emails to herself, or to family, talked in part about her job as a health administrator during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The trial earlier heard Hanna often wrote emails to herself as drafts.
“I’m tired and not myself,” Hanna wrote in an email to herself, read in court by Polkinghorne’s lawyer Ron Mansfield.
It’s not clear if the email, written almost a year before her death at 8.11pm on April 14, 2020, was meant for anyone else.
“But I’ve had a horrible day, starting with [name redacted] whom I have disappointed,” Hanna wrote.
“I’m never good enough despite my efforts.”
“Today is the 25th day in a row but I’m not adding any value.”
“I want desperately to tell someone and cry and ask for help but everyone seems to think I’m amazing and does not want to know that I have foibles or failings,” she continued.
“I try to bring it up with Philip but he tells me he hasn’t got time to go over negative tonight (= he has enough).”
Hanna’s email continued: “I must stand on my own two feet but I don’t know today if I have two feet or what they look like.
“So I’ve had three glasses of wine and a beautiful dinner thanks to PJP [Polkinghorne], but I don’t know what to do with myself …
“So I will go to bed and not sleep, very unusual for me, and it builds up, who knows what might follow.”
“Have to tell someone, even if no-one but God ever sees this.”
Hanna ended the email by signing it “P xxxx”, indicating four kisses.
The email was from her work address to her work address.
Polkinghorne looked to be crying as the emails were read, with his head resting in his hands and holding tissues.
At other times he gazed straight down at his desk in court.
Polkinghorne’s defence in the trial has said his wife was working long hours in a high stress job, and had previously thought about and attempted suicide before.
It has also singled out her years of prescription drug use in its evidence.
Earlier on Tuesday, a second defence pathologist said they would have ruled Hanna’s death a suicide if they were assigned the case.
