The judge says he going to end the day's proceedings at this point.

The jury will return tomorrow morning for the second day of the trial.

Asked whether he had lifted the duvet to attach medical equipment to test for signs of life, Bernard Doo said: "I would rather preserve dignity as she appeared to be deceased and there was nothing more I could do."

The paramedic offered his condolences to the husband but didn't recall any further communications.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield asked if Doo was aware that Polkinghorne's sister had made a second 111 call asking where the ambulance was. He said he wasn't.

Mansfield also asked Doo about the equipment he used to check Hanna's vital signs.

Doo had described Polkinghorne in an earlier statement as crying.

Asked if he had moved the duvet or clothing to attach medical equipment, he said he had moved clothing to gain access to Hanna's shoulders.

He had also attached the equipment to Hanna's upper thighs.

In his earlier statement, Doo said Polkinghorne said he found the victim hanging and had cut her down. "He did not know how long she'd been there."

Mansfield asked whether Polkinghorne had said he had "put or taken her down". Doo could not recall.

"I thought we were responding to a full hanging," Doo told Mansfield.

Asked if the occupants would be advised to cut the victim down, Doo said he was not aware of this.

Polkinghorne was asked if Hanna was on any medications. He had replied that she was on anti-depressants but couldn't remember which ones.

Doo said the markings around her neck looked to be consistent with a hanging.

His statement says he looked no further than the head or neck "because I was sure she had died from a hanging".

Mansfield has now finished his cross examination of Doo.

St John worker Bernard Doo, a paramedic, is taking the witness stand now. 

He said he was on the road when the call came in.

His colleague was going to get a Covid test when a purple call came in, meaning a cardiac arrest.

He recalled how they headed to Upland Rd with lights and sirens but the call was downgraded to orange, meaning they could revert to normal road speed and switch off lights and sirens.

They were told a doctor was on the scene saying the patient was deceased.

Upon arrival, they tried the buzzer three times at the gate but did not get a response and couldn't get inside the gate. They then realised the access was off Darwin Lane.

A man in his 60s waved them down.

They grabbed their gear from the ambulance and entered the house.

Doo said a lady in her 60s or 70s also greeted them and followed them inside to a corridor. "As I stepped in... I could see what appeared to a body underneath a duvet at the bottom of the stairs," he told the court, adding that "they seemed unresponsive".

"The husband of the patient was also there.

"My focus was on the patient under the duvet," who wasn't totally covered by the duvet, he said.

"She was unresponsive and her face was ashen and blue. I could see an orange rope dangling from the banister on the stairs."

The paramedics found "no vital signs of life". 

"I noticed some marks around the neck which seemed to be consistent with hanging," Doo said.

"I don't recall noticing anything else."

Doo's colleague was talking to the husband and informed him the patient was deceased.

Doo said it was obvious the husband had some sort of laceration or graze on his forehead.

It had stopped bleeding so there was no urgency required. 

He said he then radioed back to HQ that the patient was deceased.

Asked about the neck marking, he said he didn't closely examine it.

"We tend not to because sadly we go to quite a few of these."

Doo had attended about 30 such suicides during his career.

Doo is now being asked to look at photos of the property.

The judge has now asked anyone who is to give evidence during the trial to leave the public gallery.

Evidence is now being read from St John ambulance worker Sarah Crook.

On April 13, St John received a police request for 111 call data from April 5, 2021 at the couple's Remuera home.

Crook processed the request, uploading audio of the 111 call and event log information.

The Crown's Brian Dickey says the court is about to hear a recording of the 111 call.

"My wife's dead, she's hung herself," a voice says.

"She's cold," he says, before giving the address.

"Have you cut her down?" a voice asks.

"She's dead," he repeats.

"Why do you believe she's dead?" the 111 operator asks.

"Because I can't feel a pulse, she's blue," Polkinghorne replies.

He tells the call operator he is an eye doctor.

"Do you think she's beyond any help?"

"Yeah yeah."

The call-taker then tells him to leave everything as it is and that paramedics are on the way.

"Okay, thank you."

The call ends.

"Their relationship at that time was perfectly happy. They were open and honest," defence lawyer Ron Mansfield said.

"Some described her as 'wearing the pants'. Like in any relationship, there will be disagreements.

He added that their relationship had been "good, supportive and open".

The lawyer for Polkinghorne stated that it is "important to understand the open sexual nature of their marriage". 

"You will see by way of evidence that they were getting on well. There was no need for an argument or assault," he added.

"Was it a successful suicide attempt by a woman who was prone to depression and had talked about thoughts of taking her own life?"

The defence lawyer states that a "combination of the drugs and alcohol she was taking sadly left her prone to taking her own life".

He said that "after just one hour in the house, police began treating the death as suspicious when it wasn't".

"What you have is a one-eyed investigation focused on that suspicion", he said, saying there was a "desperate need to find a motive".

He added that the eye surgeon "loved his wife" and she loved him. 

He asked the jury to keep an open mind about all the evidence and said that Polkinghorne had "not lied at all".

"The very day his wife died, that man co-operated with police in that way," the lawyer said.

"It is not accepted at all during that interview he was anything but honest and frank."

Mansfield closed his opening remarks by reiterating that "the sad reality is Mrs Polkinghorne took her own life".

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield said that only 16 months after Polkinghorne gave two detailed statements to police about what happened was a murder charge laid.

"Investigations did not stop there. It continued trying to find evidence of some motive he might have for doing such an act."

Mansfield said "people, relationships are very subjective" and couldn't say whether the couple's relationship was "perfect".

"As long as two people love and support each other and know what is going on in... [a] relationship, including sexual experiences, it is not for us to pry or judge.

"They may have lived [a] relationship that is not suitable to you, but that matters not," he added.

The lawyer stated that "casual drug use, sexual behaviour and finances, when you hear all of the evidence, reveals nothing, nor does it reveal motive for why this man may have taken his wife's life".

He said meth had nothing to do with what occurred the night of Hanna's death.

"It will be found to be entirely irrelevant."

"Only evidence of casual use of the drug which is taken by many people across NZ. It played no part in Mrs Polkinghorne's death," he added.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield is now addressing the jury.

He says there is nothing unexplained about Hanna's death.

Mansfield says the evidence will "all add up" and confirm she died by suicide.

He states that the Crown's submissions were "one clearly crafted side of things".

"You will realise there is a lot more to the couple's lives."

"Suggestions they were unhappy or that Polkinghorne led a double life were incorrect," he added.

"Their relationship and sexual lives were open."

He said Hanna knew of Polkinghorne's relationships outside the marriage because she was involved.

"There is no pathology to support a homicide, of an argument, disagreement or assault, let alone a fatal assault.

"The pathology evidence fails to back up the Crown's theory that this was strangulation killing," he said.

"Polkinghorne told the police, twice on the day it happened, a true account.

"That account fits entirely with what you will learn about hangings of this type."

He said the Crown's submissions that the mechanics did not support a suicide are "quite wrong".

"There were 16 months of police investigations which upturned the couple's lives."

The defence lawyer said they were looking for evidence that did not exist.

The trial will resume shortly.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield will open the defence case after a short adjournment.

The Crown says it must prove the elements that make up the charge of murder.

Firstly, that Polkinghorne killed Hanna by an unlawful act (i.e., whether he inflicted the fatal pressure on her neck) and secondly, his state of mind.

A motive may emerge through the evidence but is not a requirement. We may never know exactly why this happened, McClintock said.

The jury must look at all the evidence and ask if it is sure the Crown has proven the elements of murder.

The Crown doesn't have to prove motive or the reason someone killed a person.

"That may surprise you but it is the law."

McClintock said maybe Polkinghorne "lost it and snapped" over his desire to move on, his frustration with his wife and anger at her response to his sexual advances, she stated.

"If you accept that Ms Hanna died by neck compression at the hands of Dr Polkinghorne, intention or recklessness will ultimately follow."

She urged the jury to put aside feelings of sympathy or prejudice for the victim or defendant. All of that must be put to one side, she said. The case must be decided on the evidence and nothing else.

The Crown is now going into what it knows about what Polkinghorne did on the night of the death.

His internet usage shows he was active on his phone overnight, but switched for a period to flight mode, "which is hard to reconcile". He told police he went to bed at 10pm.

The Crown says Polkinghorne deleted his Whatsapp history with sex worker Madison Ashton and asked her to do the same.

Polkinghorne tried to access an encrypted web browsers for "how to delete iCloud storage" and searched "edema after strangulation" before deleting that search.

He told police his wife had hung herself and gave a lengthy video interview later that day, which will be shown to the jury.

In it, the Crown says he and his wife slept in separate rooms that night and had an ordinary evening, had dinner and drinks and talked, before Hanna watched Netflix.

He suggested she drunk much more than him but wasn't drunk. He claimed she didn't seem unhappy and there was no argument.

He said he went to bed around 10pm and woke at 6am the next morning. He went downstairs to make tea and toast and found her slumped in a chair with a belt around her neck, tied to the orange rope fixed above.

To get her down, he undid three or four granny knots.

According to the Crown, he said he took the rope down because it was "hideous". He said the knots tied to the balustrade were down the bottom of the balustrade, and later said he may have moved them.

The photographs reveal the lie, the Crown stated, adding that the treatment of his dead wife by him during the interview was striking. He said she drank too much and got emotional at TV shows. The Crown says he seemed intent on painting her as a pitiful woman.

In that interview with police, Polkinghorne painted his marriage in a positive light and, in five hours, did not mention infidelity or the relationship with Ashton.