Summarised by Centrist
Former Auckland eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne has claimed in a new documentary that the COVID vaccine contributed to the death of his wife, Pauline Hanna, despite a jury acquitting him of her murder last year.
“She had the vaccine the day before [her death],” Polkinghorne said in footage recorded before his trial. “I think she got post-vaccine encephalitis, and she went psychotic overnight. And the literature supports that.”
The comments appear in Polk: The Trial of Philip Polkinghorne, a three-part series streaming on ThreeNow and produced by private investigator Julia Hartley Moore and filmmaker Mark McNeill.
Polkinghorne was interviewed by an unnamed journalist before his trial on the condition the footage be withheld until after the verdict.
The 71-year-old was cleared in September of killing Hanna, a senior health executive who died in their Remuera home in April 2021. The Crown alleged she was strangled. The defence argued the case was circumstantial and incomplete.
The trial also revealed Polkinghorne’s secret life, including methamphetamine use and long-term involvement with escort Madison Ashton, who was paid more than $100,000 and later received an engagement ring from him.
The documentary leaves open questions about Hanna’s death but presents, for the first time, Polkinghorne’s personal theory: that a mishandled vaccine dose triggered a fatal reaction.
