The defence has called a star witness at the Philip Polkinghorne murder trial.
Warning: This article contains content that could be disturbing to some people.
Professor Stephen Cordner is an Australian pathologist with a long history of high-level appointments and recognition.
His task, as defence lawyer Ron Mansfield put it to him, was to consider whether Pauline Hanna's death was homicide or suicide.
Hanna, 63, was allegedly murdered by her husband Polkinghorne at their Auckland home at Easter 2021.
The Crown has said a suicide doesn't add up and that Polkinghorne staged the scene after fatally strangling Hanna.
Prosecutors said the now 71-year-old was caught in a web of meth, infidelity and money woes.
In turn, his defence has painted a picture of Hanna as a woman working long hours in a high stress job, who had attempted suicide before and was on anti-depressants.
Philip Polkinghorne is on trial in Auckland for the alleged murder of his wife Pauline Hanna. Composite Image: Vinay Ranchhod (Source: 1News/supplied) (Source: 1News)
"It's not rocket science," Cordner said of his profession. "It's a straight-forward application of medicine."
"Some of what I'm going to talk about is pretty grim", he said, apologising to jurors.
Cordner said he was looking for evidence of injuries, and patterns of injuries.
"That includes consideration of absence of injury," he said. "The question here, is has the deceased been killed or did she kill herself?
"If she's been killed then that means assault," Cordner continued. "So then there are injuries that are commonly associated with assault.
"People who are strangled manually, or by ligature, also in a very significant number of instances have injuries of general assault.
Where to get help. (Source: 1News)
"They've been beaten up," he said.
Cordner's evidence was expected to last much of today.
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The murder trial at the High Court in Auckland began in late July and is now in its sixth week.
Polkinghorne has always maintained that nothing sinister happened. He said he woke to find Hanna dead.
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