A former Auckland eye surgeon accused of murdering his wife appeared to be in a relationship with a Sydney sex worker, a detective says. Philip Polkinghorne is on trial at the High Court at Auckland, accused of murdering wife Pauline Hanna and staging her death as a suicide. Detective Andrew Reeves continued giving evidence on Monday, telling the court the first communication police found between Polkinghorne and sex worker Madison Ashton was in Reeves suggested Polkinghorne had deleted messages from his phone, but they were found on a phone belonging to Ashton.
However, Reeves said the messages were "scrambled", "unreadable", and "difficult to make sense of". On that date, Ashton sent Polkinghorne attachments related to a plastic surgery procedure she was set to get done. Ashton's two phones were seized by police on 30 August while she was staying with Polkinghorne at the Mount Cook lodge. In the years before her death, Pauline Hanna never searched for suicide or self-harm on her phone, a detective says.
He used the search engine Duck Duck Go, designed to be untraceable, the day after, the High Court in Auckland has heard. Google searches and documents found on a computer owned by Pauline Hanna, allegedly murdered by her husband, are being shared in the High Court. The expert testimony comes after a meth pipe was found at the workplace of a surgeon accused of murdering his wife. The relationship between Philip Polkinghorne and wife Pauline Hannah was strained before he allegedly murdered her, emails show.
New Zealand RSS. Follow RNZ News. Tags: court crime Auckland Region. What Philip Polkinghorne searched online the day after his wife's death 23 Aug Polkinghorne jury hears meth use can increase violence 23 Aug Get the RNZ app for ad-free news and current affairs.
