Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield continued his closing statement this morning as the Philip Polkinghorne murder trial drew nearer to an end.
The Crown yesterday closed their case, arguing Polkinghorne was a "master manipulator" who led two lives that were on a "collision course" before he killed his wife Pauline Hanna in April 2021, possibly under the influence of meth or while coming down from a high.
Mansfield said this morning that the pathology evidence showed “nothing incompatible” with suicide, emphasising the "absence of defensive injuries” that might've been present if there had been a struggle.
He said that, whenever evidence was "inconvenient" for the Crown, they called people "liar" or "advocate".
But actually, investigators had a “passion to try and find evidence of a crime that had not been committed”, Mansfield said, defending Polkinghorne's character and pointing to the various forms of help he provided to sex workers: "He wasn’t just turning up, taking and leaving.”
He said defence witnesses knew they would be in the spotlight when they gave evidence, and did so anyway, arguing that “says a lot about them but it also says a lot about him” and they “came and they were honest”.
Polkinghorne had “high standards and didn’t tolerate mistakes” in work, driven by “wanting to do a good job for patients”, Mansfield continued.
That commitment “tells you a great deal about this man, his foibles aside”, Mansfield said.
'He is a man of respect and who respects others'
Mansfield this morning painted a picture of Polkinghorne as a polite and kind man who the Crown attacked because “they need you not to like him and not to respect him” - when in reality “he is a man of respect and who respects others”.
“I don’t consider that you can do justice fairly if you just focus on the negative.”
He said Polkinghorne was interviewed by police voluntarily on the day emergency services were called to the home.
Mansfield said the defendant acted in a way consistent with a grieving husband in shock - not consistent with the actions of a "master manipulator”.
“He just did what you and I would do.”
'Stiff upper lip'
The court heard evidence about Polkinghorne's behaviour after his wife's death earlier in the trial.
Mansfield said Polkinghorne was “presenting a brave face” at times - but being on the phone with friends and family prompted more emotion.
“That is how we are," the defence lawyer said. “We all try to keep a brave face, this British stiff upper lip we’re told we should have from being kids.
“There are times when you can’t control it.
“He loved this woman,” Mansfield added. “They were each other’s bricks and they were together for a long time."
'Sometimes people turn their phones onto aeroplane mode'
Mansfield said that the power evidence showed, if the washing machine had been turned on the morning of April 5, the police would've heard the end of the cycle while they were there - and the bedroom upstairs where Hanna was sleeping was not “dishevelled”, it was just in a state of being tidied.
He said the evidence confirmed what Polkinghorne said in his original police interview: “There is no divergence."
“The police have done their darnedest, you might think” to disclose a lie – but there was no lie to uncover, Mansfield said.
And in that interview, Polkinghorne appeared confused or unclear on certain points when he would've been precise if he had just committed a murder and staged the scene as a suicide, Mansfield argued.
He also said that there was "no need" for Polkinghorne to put his phone onto aeroplane mode when he went to bed that night as "part of any cold-blooded killing" - “sometimes people turn their phones onto aeroplane mode when they just don’t want to be disturbed”.
In the morning, Polkinghorne called emergency services on the landline rather than his mobile because he couldn't get his mobile to work, Mansfield said.
“I suppose this master villain could’ve forgotten, after deliberately putting it on to take his wife’s life, to turn it off," he said sarcastically.
“Such a mastermind."
He also suggested Polkinghorne could have put the phone on aeroplane mode by mistake.
Polkinghorne 'in a state of shock'
Mansfield said the mechanism of suicide proposed by the defence was supported by the evidence.
And he again argued Polkinghorne would’ve given more detail in his evidence if he was a "cold-blooded" killer.
Mansfield said the injury to Polkinghorne's head that morning could easily have been because he knocked his head “in a state of shock” - and he had no explanation because “that kind of injury, minor as it was to him, would not have been front and centre of mind” if he’d just found wife dead.
The defence lawyer also said Polkinghorne's police interview showed the defendant saying he thought Hanna was mentally “pretty good really” – when suggesting suicide would be “very thing” he was trying to convince police of if he killed her.
The affect of medications, alcohol, and work stress were among Hanna's suicide factors, Mansfield argued.
“Even if you accept what the Crown says hook, line and sinker regarding the state of their relationship… that simply serves to increase the real risk of all of those things: Depression, anxiety and suicide.”
'On her own, unable to sleep'
People put on brave face, Mansfield said. “She was concerned about other people, but she was also concerned about how other people saw her.”
He suggested Hanna had concealed how she was feeling at work, before adding: “There is no more lonely place, when you’re already feeling very low, than the early hours of the morning when you can’t sleep.
“At that time, when you’re that low, it is the darkest of places to be.
“It is dark, it is bleak, it is desperate, and that is where Pauline is likely to have woken to [early on April 5, 2021].
“On her own, unable to sleep,” he said.
Continuing, Mansfield argued the Crown's explanation "makes no sense because there is nothing there to support it".
“It’s a nonsense and one of the most grievous nonsenses one of our courts has heard for a long time.”
'No-one saw inside that veneer'
Mansfield said some Crown witnesses just didn’t like Polkinghorne and never did because he was “different” to them, before pointing to emails where Hanna suggested she was struggling with work, including one where she said “Philip has been amazing”.
In another, she said: “My life is insane and I do not know what day it is sometimes.”
Mansfield asked: “Are you seriously asked to believe she wasn’t a suicide risk on 5 April, 2021?
“Pauline was a beautiful woman, she was intelligent and capable, but she didn’t always see it that way."
Mansfield added that “there can’t be any suggestion that Pauline was trapped in a relationship that she could not exit from".
“There were friends who would’ve dropped anything if they’d just known how poor a state she was in – as would have Philip – but no one saw inside that veneer,” he said. "You can't and should not blame [Polkinghorne] for the unexpected decision and action she took that morning."
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