A documentary company has been ordered to hand a coroner raw footage of an interview with Philip Polkinghorne.
By Rowan Quinn of RNZ
The documentary Polk: The Trial of Philip Polkinghorne aired on ThreeNow last year and featured excerpts of an interview with Polkinghorne.
The interview was referred to on Tuesday during an inquest into the 2021 death of Polkinghorne’s wife Pauline Hanna. He was found not guilty of her murder in 2024.
Coroner Tania Tehitaha has compelled the company Blonde Razor to hand over the four hours of raw footage.
She is using section 120 of the Coroner’s Act to do that.
RNZ understands the raw footage is from interviews done in 2022.
Much of the discussion about handing over the footage was held behind closed doors, with journalists and the public told to leave the court.
When they returned, Coroner Tehitaha said she only wanted to see aspects of the footage that related to specific aspects of the evidence.
Found not guilty two years ago of murdering his wife, Philip Polkinghorne gave evidence today at an inquest into her death. (Source: 1News)
This stage of the inquest is looking into how Pauline Hanna died and the circumstances surrounding that, including whether her death was self inflicted.
Coroner Tehitaha said it would likely take about a day to get the footage, and adjourned the hearing for the rest of Wednesday.
Polkinghorne spent most of Tuesday giving evidence, firstly his own account and then under cross examination from police counsel Alysha McClintock.
The family of Pauline Hanna had been due to cross examine Polkinghorne on Wednesday but that is now delayed.