Warning: This story mentions suicide.
Police intercepted Philip Polkinghorne's calls for weeks following his wife's death, the High Court in Auckland has been told.
The Crown argues that Polkinghorne, a former eye surgeon, murdered Pauline Hanna on Easter Monday in 2021 and staged it as a suicide.
Polkinghorne's defence argues that she committed suicide after struggles with depression and pressures from her work in managing the Covid-19 vaccine rollout during the pandemic.
During cross-examination of Senior Sergeant Chris Allan, one of the detectives investigating the case, jurors heard that Polkinghorne's phone was lawfully intercepted following Hanna's death.
Allan said a search surveillance device warrant was issued on April 6 and was effective for 21 days.
Jurors have been told that in one intercepted call, Polkinghorne called pathologist Rexon Tse to ask for a second autopsy.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, said the call was made on the afternoon of April 8, which Allan confirmed today.
Allan conceded that, at that time, Polkinghorne had not yet been informed by police of any preliminary findings of an autopsy of Hanna done on April 6.
Digital forensic analyst queried about phone
Jun Lee, a digital forensic analyst from the police's national hi-tech crime group, was called in last minute by the Crown to give evidence on activities on Hanna's mobile phone before she died.
Lee had been tasked with analysing background data from her iPhone.
He said raw database from the phone showed there was no user interaction with the phone after 10.47pm, the night before Hanna was found dead.
He said the data he analysed would have picked up any sort of interaction, including any unlocking of the screen, any movement of the phone or use of applications on it.
On Tuesday, the defence presented evidence during cross-examination claiming that Hanna composed a message on her phone about 4am on the morning she was found dead.
During cross-examination by Mansfield, Lee was asked whether in his experience, the background data has ever been unreliable, to which Lee said no.
Mansfield also asked whether the phone log entry would register if someone started to create a message but later abandoned it.
Lee said that draft would not have been recorded on the phone, as the iOS system - unlike the Android system - does not save drafts of messages not sent.
On Thursday, the cross-examination of Lee would continue, and the defence was expected to begin its opening statements.
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