Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield is now cross-examining the witness, Sergeant Jonathan Hurn.

Mansfield is pointing out Hurn is not on the witness list, and is asking what that's about.

Hurn explains that he was summonsed initially, then stood down the morning of the trial, before being asked to bring the belt in and produce it as an exhibit.

To clarify, he was not told until right before giving evidence that he needed to bring the belt in and produce it as an exhibit.

Mansfield is asking about containers of Zopiclone he found, a sleeping pill Hanna used. She had more than the recommended dose in her blood at the time she died, and had drunk alcohol while taking the sedative, which is not recommended. A couple of the containers contained only a few pills, Mansfield observes.

Mansfield is taking aim at the young sergeant for not recording where a bag containing Zopiclone was found.

"In all honesty, at the time I was very new to the Criminal Investigation Branch [CIB]," he said.

"You had a photographer there, why didn't you take a photo of it in situ?" Mansfield asks.

"I don't know," Hurn replies.

Mansfield is asking about inconsistencies between photographs captured by police in the bathroom.

One shows a towel on the floor and the other does not.

Are police moving items during their exam? Mansfield asks.

Hurn is unsure.

There appears to be some women's cosmetics in the bathroom drawers, Mansfield says.

Hurn says he wouldn't know.

"It's not an item I'm familiar with."

Then a silver-topped container, what's that? inquires Mansfield.

"I didn't catalogue everything in that drawer," Hurn replies.

Justice Lang has had enough.

That's it for today. Hurn returns tomorrow for more cross-examination from Mansfield.

The trial will resume at 10am tomorrow with more cross examination of Hurn, now a sergeant but who examined the scene as a constable relatively new to the CIB.

The next witness isn't on the witness list. He is Jonathan Hurn, a young police sergeant with jet black hair.

At the time in April 2021 he was a constable.

When he first got to the Upland Rd property on April 5, he was tasked with the scene examination.

A pathologist was at the scene when he arrived.

Earlier, the trial heard it was not quite usual for a pathologist to come to the scene for suicides by hanging. But police had quickly become suspicious that there was more to the scene than the suspected suicide reported to emergency services.

When he was at the scene, ESR was conducting laser scanning with a device that was unfamiliar to Hurn.

He saw the orange rope hanging down from the balustrade when he came in through the entrance near Darwin Ln, which runs off Upland Rd.

Neither that rope nor the section on the stairs leading down to the garage was a focus for Hurn, he said.

Hanna's body was covered with bedding, possibly a duvet, Hurn said.

Hurn seized the duvet.

There was a sheet underneath the duvet.

He seized the sheet as well.

The specifics of examining the body was the responsibility of another officer, he said. He did not recall much, if anything, about the robe.

He had a look at the small blood stain underneath her head. His police colleague used a clean glove to verify the blood was dry.

Hurn also seized the leather belt Polkinghorne said was wrapped around Hanna's neck and attached to the orange rope.

Sergeant Jonathan Hurn is holding the belt. Polkinghorne appears distraught upon seeing the belt again. He has his head in his hands and can't look at the witness.

Polkinghorne is sitting behind his lawyer Ron Mansfield, beside a security guard.

Polkinghorne has stayed relatively stoic during the trial, even sharing laughs with a security guard. But upon seeing the belt he says his wife used to hang herself displayed by Sergeant Jonathan Hurn, he appears to have become deeply upset, placing his head in his hands and weeping quietly.

Mansfield has checked the 71-year-old is okay but the trial continues.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield back for yet more cross-examination of a scene cop, this time Detective Constable Nicholas Foo.

He is asking if Foo was aware if Hanna had been seen using the vehicle to make the trip to the tip. Foo said he couldn't be sure.

Foo was also assigned to speak to a number of potential witnesses, Mansfield confirmed.

He would let the witness know what they were to speak about and how it was relevant when setting up the interview, Foo agreed in response to Mansfield's questions.

One of the people he interviewed was Stephen MacIntyre, the friend from Ring's Beach who described Polkinghorne's change in behaviour in the months before his wife died.

Foo is unsure if he knew at the time MacIntyre was a part-time resident at Ring's Beach.

MacIntyre gave evidence this morning and said Polkinghorne became skinnier and somewhat erratic, and he wondered if he was using drugs.

The Crown has called Detective Constable Nicholas Foo.

Foo said he had recently left the police. In 2021, he was based at Auckland Central police station and was involved in examining the red Ssangyong ute.

Pip McNabb is again leading his evidence.

He was tasked with undertaking a general and forensic examination of the Korean ute.

Fiona Matheson conducted the forensic examination of the ute. She swabbed for DNA, that sort of thing, said Foo.

Various mundane items were found in the ute, including a contact lens case.

Some named items were found, said Foo. They included medical instruments, with a handwritten evidence saying they belonged to Philip Polkinghorne. The accused is a now-retired eye surgeon with decades of experience.

The day before her death, Pauline Hanna used the ute, and the orange rope Polkinghorne says she used to hang herself, to take some rubbish to a South Auckland tip.

Detective Sergeant Amanda Reed now being cross-examined by defence lawyer Ron Mansfield. 

She was last at the Upland Rd home on April 15, 10 days after Hanna was found dead, and after the visit of the two Crown prosecutors to the Remuera home. She was not privy to the conference and walk-through involving police and prosecutors inside the home. Reed is describing organising OCS to come in and clean the property.

OCS, a cleaning firm, were told to clean all the fingerprinting dust from the walls.

That was not usual police practice but was done out of respect following the death of Hanna because police had been there for some time, Reed said.

Mansfield is again asking when the portaloos ordered by police arrived at the Upland Rd home.

Reed said she does not know when they arrived, but Mansfield says it was between April 7 and April 9, two to four days after the death.

Where were they using the bathroom, asks Mansfield?

There was a cafe down the road, says Reed.

Scene guards would wait until they were relieved by colleagues, she said.

Since last week, Mansfield has been circling the suggestion that the meth-contaminated urine in Hanna's bathroom could have been deposited by someone who did not live in the home.

The Crown has called Detective Sergeant Amanda Reed, of the Auckland District CIB. In April 2021, she was also a detective sergeant but based out of the Glen Innes station, tasked to assist at the Upland Rd home following the death of Pauline Hanna, as scene co-ordinator. 

Her role was to assist the officer in charge of the scene.

Prosecutor Pip McNabb, who is assisting the current and former Auckland Crown solicitors on the front bench during the Polkinghorne trial, is leading the detective's evidence.

Reed is describing examining and seizing the red Ssangyong ute Pauline Hanna had used the day before to take some rubbish to the tip.

She arranged for the vehicle to be seized and towed to the police's secure location in Mt Eden. Police as usual asked for a "forensic tow", whereby the ute is put up on to the bed of the tow truck, so it isn't disturbed too much.

Reed's evidence-in-chief has finished. 

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield is cross-examining former ESR forensic scientist Cameron Johnson on the Eutylone found in the home, a Class C controlled drug.

It was most similar to cathinones, the scientist said. They are stimulants similar to amphetamines, Johnson said.

Can drugs such as Eutylone, mixed with a cutting agent, be sold to unsuspecting purchasers of methamphetamine, asked Mansfield.

Johnson doesn't understand the question.

Mansfield rephrases, saying unwitting users might not know they were purchasing a stimulant like eutylone versus methamphetamine.

Johnson agrees and says he's aware of testing users can conduct to verify they are in fact buying meth.

The Crown has called another forensic scientist, Cameron Johnson. He worked for ESR at the time of the analysis he will be questioned on.

Johnson was the ESR drugs case manager for the Polkinghorne investigation.

Johnson is wading through the crystalline white powders found in the Polkinghorne home. 

Eutylone, a controlled Class C drug similar to MDMA, was found in the home, alongside methamphetamine, a Class A controlled drug. 

Other substances found with the drugs were "cutting agents" used to bulk up drugs like MDMA or meth but not themselves having psychoactive properties.

Police found meth in several rooms in the home, often in plastic containers. Polkinghorne pleaded guilty to two previously suppressed meth charges at the start of the trial relating to the search of his home after he reported Hanna's death.

Johnson's evidence wears on. A self-sealing bag, more meth, another container, yet more meth.

One sample of meth alone amounted to 14.4g of methamphetamine.

The entire first row is again full of onlookers, numbering about 20. About the same number are sitting in the two rows behind them in the spacious Courtroom 11, upstairs in the High Court at Auckland.

Two women the Herald spoke to at lunch said they did not have any connection to the case but found the evidence fascinating and were trying to come as much as they could. Others are in the same boat. Law students continue to rotate in and out. Absent are Polkinghorne's children.

Two detectives remain in the gallery: Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Allan, the officer in charge of the case, and Detective Inspector Aaron Pascoe, who was also heavily involved in the inquiry.

Detectives always seem to sit near the door.

Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield is questioning ESR forensic scientist Timothy Power on the intricacies of DNA testing, including the Y STR test. It looks for the male Y chromosome in DNA and can be used to filter out male-only DNA in a female-heavy sample. There is no analogous test for female DNA because the female XX chromosome does not have the stand-out Y.

Power is agreeing with Mansfield that the fact Polkinghorne and his wife lived in the home meant their DNA would be all over the home.

The high-use areas would contain screeds of both of their DNA, Power agreed.

After a high-tempo morning of evidence we are back into the weeds. Mansfield is emphasising the ease of transfer of DNA around a home, and questioning the relevance of the samples.
One juror has been resting her eyes.