Mansfield finishes his cross-examination, with questions about the defence's pathologist, whom the jury has not yet heard from.

In response to further questions from Brian Dickey, Sage says he does not agree with the defence pathologist's definitive conclusion that Hanna died by suicide by hanging. 

It was hard to rule the cause in or out, he says.

Sage's evidence winds up today's court session. 

The trial will resume at 10am tomorrow with another new witness. 

The jury has not been told who it will be. 

The Herald live blog will return in the morning.

Sage's phone goes off. His ringtone is the sound of crickets. Mansfield resumes.

Mansfield: The injuries found through the course of the autopsy could occur in a partial-suspension hanging?

Sage, after another hesitation: The extraneous injuries could be associated with a suicide by hanging, or they could be associated with an assault.

Justice Lang asks Mansfield to specify which of the several sets of injuries he's talking about.

Mansfield: The injuries reported were not specific and it would not be scientific to draw conclusions from them?

Sage, after a hesitation: Yes, they should not be used to rule in or rule out theories. 

There's no indication the injuries were caused at the same time of her death, Sage says, but neither could he exclude that they happened at the time of death.

Mansfield asks if Sage saw Polkinghorne's video interview, when he told police a 111 call-taker had told him to cut down his wife.

No, says Sage.

Did he hear Polkinghorne's explanation for how he dealt with the rope after discovering his wife? (Polkinghorne said he loosened and removed the rope because it looked "hideous" hanging above his dead wife in the corridor).

No, and not listening to the interview was deliberate, says Sage, so his evidence wasn't contaminated.

Would Sage accept, asks Mansfield, that if the belt was removed from Hanna's neck up to two hours after death, the mark might disappear, just as it did?

Yes, that's possible, says Sage.

Mansfield again makes the point that no one recorded the length, width or angle of the ligature mark before it disappeared.

Sage says he had never seen a ligature mark appearing and disappearing in the way seen in this case, though he had read about it.

There were two explanations: it had been applied after death, and for some time, so as to leave that indentation, or the belt had been used as a ligature then removed one or two hours after death, Sage says. 

Mansfield: In relation to the injuries we had heard of other than the ligature mark itself, you're of the view those external, minor blunt-force injuries are non-specific and unhelpful?

Sage: Yes.

Sage further agrees the timing of each injury, including if they were suffered pre- or post-mortem, is unclear, which was unfortunate.

Ron Mansfield KC cross examines Dr Martin Sage, referring to correspondence he says shows Sage "deterring the need for an independent review" of Dr Kilak Kesha's work, and asks if he's usually not in favour of such reviews.

Sage appears unclear on that so Mansfield hands him the correspondence. 

"I don't say that at all," the pathologist says.

Sage says his point was not that no reviews should ever be conducted, it was about differences in other jurisdictions.

But he agrees he said there was no need to do a second autopsy.

"At first pass, this looks like a suicide with an incomplete suspension," Sage says. "The bit that bothers me most is the assembly at which she apparently suspended herself doesn't look like it's capable of doing that."

He "can't say" exactly what killed Hanna, he says.