Philip Polkinghorne at the beginning of his High Court murder trial. Photo: RNZ/Nick Monro
A jury has watched footage of former eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne questioning if he put too much expectation on his wife before she allegedly took her own life.
Polkinghorne is accused of murdering his wife and staging it as suicide.
But the defence argues she took her own life.
In the High Court at Auckland, a video was played of Polkinghorne's interview with police from the day Hanna was found dead.
In the interview, the retired eye surgeon questions whether he put too much expectation on his wife during the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out.
He wondered if he encouraged her to do to much, including pushing her to write something on home dialysis, something she had instituted as a policy at Middlemore Hospital.
"Maybe I put expectations on her to do those things," he said.
"Because that's what I'd do.
"She was tired, maybe she didn't want to do that job, maybe she just thought I got my rocks off listening to that stuff at night, maybe I just should never've let her do it."
He wondered if he could have listened more to Hanna's concerns.
"She vocalised her concerns, but maybe I just didn't listen to what she was saying to me," he said.
"Maybe I just didn't listen."
During the police interview, Polkinghorne received a call from his friend barrister Tony Bouchier.
Detective Ilona Walton, who conducted the police interview, took the phone and left the room to speak to Bouchier.
She did not tell him Polkinghorne was under police suspicion, only that he was being interviewed as a witness.
After the phone call, Walton asked Polkinghorne if the scene examination could continue at his home, to which he said he wouldd have to ask Bouchier about that.
Walton appeared before the court earlier in the trial, and was once again on the stand to be questioned by defence lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC.
Mansfield asked why Polkinghorne was not advised he was under suspicion during his interview with police.
"Despite those suspicions, he wasn't told that, when you took him to the police station, he was considered a potential suspect?" Mansfield asked.
"In my mind, there were plausible explanations at that time that he could have provided," replied Walton.
Walton said she did not update Polkinghorne on what was happening at his house while he was being interviewed.
Pauline Hanna's younger brother Brian Hanna took the stand on Thursday afternoon.
He said he and his sister were close.
"Yeah we've lived different lives but we've always kept in contact, and when we can we've always caught up and seen each other." he said.
Brian Hanna said Pauline seemed less happy when she was with Polkinghorne, and that this would spill over into solo trips she took to visit the family.
He said Hanna had told him about the other women Polkinghorne was seeing, including someone in Sydney, Australia, and visits he would make to prostitutes in Auckland.
"She told me she wasn't very happy with the relationship," he said.
Hanna believed Polkinghorne pushed his sister into participating in sex acts that she wouldn't ordinarily engage in, like group sex.
He said his sister described Polkinghorne as a very angry man, and described times when he was upset as being "on the roof".
The trial continues.
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