The eight-week media circus of the Philip Polkinghorne trial ends with a not guilty verdict. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reports from the High Court.

After eight weeks, the verdict comes in just past 2pm: former eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne is not guilty of murdering his wife, Pauline Hanna. After 10  hours of deliberations across two days, her death will now be remembered as a kind of paradox – the jury did not convict him of murder, but most of them also believe she did not commit suicide – and Polkinghorne may never live a normal life again.

It was a hush, then a weeping when the verdict was called. Those in the court at the time say the eye surgeon was stone-faced as his innocence was announced, and the emotions washed over the public seats where the families sat like a “whoosh”. There were tears from both families in a moment that seemed to catch many off guard – it all seemed to happen so fast.

Just under 40 journalists, many from the same outlet, are waiting outside the Auckland High Court by 2.30pm on Monday afternoon. Armed with cameras, microphones and notebooks full of questions that wouldn’t be answered, they build a barricade to the entrance of the high court, while a crowd of onlookers are lining up along the sidewalk to watch the scrum.

Crown solicitor Alysha McClintock is one of the first to leave the building. She fields questions from the reporters: she respects the jury’s decision, Hanna’s death is a tragedy, and no, the Crown has no right of appeal.

Polkinghorne exits next, and reads a statement from his phone to the crowd of journalists: “Today’s outcome is a huge turning point in our lives,” he says, checking his notes again, “but now we can grieve, and let Pauline rest in peace, and that is the best gift we can give her.” He leaves arm-in-arm with his sister, moving through the mob.

The “there will be no more questions” line, voiced by Polkinghorne’s lawyer, is always more of a challenge than a statement to a journalist. Part of the media scrum moves with him, the reporters keeping in pace to ask him questions with their microphone to their face, and camera people running ahead to get the front-on shot of Polkinghorne that will grace the splash.

The walk from the entrance of the high court to Newman Hall on Waterloo Quadrant only takes less than two minutes, if you’re walking at a moderate pace. Through purple flowers in bloom hanging over arches, past the old Courtville apartment building, the short walk is a particularly beautiful one, especially on a sunny day such as this. For Polkinghorne and his crowd of equally expressionless lawyers, dodging the questions and cameras, those two minutes must have felt unbearably long.

The crowd gives up after Polkinghorne makes it past Newman Hall – he hasn’t answered any questions, and they got the visuals they need, so they head on back to the high court. In the wait before the next appearances, voice overs are recorded and stories are updated on iPhones.

Hanna’s family appears, carrying a portrait of their late loved one and wearing white ribbon pins, to tell the media they are disappointed in the decision. They go back into the high court, maybe to leave out of a more private door, and finally into a private life.

The media crowd begins to thin out, those left greeting Hanna’s close friend, Pheasant Riordan, who earlier in the trail reenacted a strangling she said Hanna had experienced at the hands of her husband. It was a “crap decision”, she says, “she’s an amazing lady, and she didn’t deserve this end.” She hugs journalist Steve Braunias, who has written 32 stories alone on the Polkinghorne trial, before leaving hand-in-hand with her husband to a future that hopefully provides closure.

Perhaps the last whodunnit case to grip the nation so fiercely was the murder of Scott Guy, a two-year media spectacle that ended in the acquittal of his brother-in-law, Ewen Macdonald. Maybe in 10 years’ time, another murder case with the same kind of elements that made Polkinghorne’s great fodder – the complicated family ties, the scandal, the unknowable mystery of it all – will come around, and reporters will be saying there’s been nothing like it since Polkinghorne.

The media crowd thins out even more, heading back to the office to package something together for the 6pm bulletins or to write a reflection piece to go out at 5am. Some of them have been here the whole trial, diligently updating live blogs with all the details ad nauseam in the name of public transparency. Others are here to give their colleagues a hand in the news sharing, making sure they’ve covered the audio, print, digital and visual media channels to get the story out.

The end of the Polkinghorne trial won’t mean the end of media coverage – Stuff released an interview with his mistress Madison Ashton less than an hour after the verdict came through, and the Herald soon followed.  The not guilty verdict will be dissected in think pieces, and Braunias might write another 32 articles – especially as Polkinghorne will be heading back to court in November on methamphetamine charges.

Many people abstain from reading the news because it’s too “depressing”. Yet the picture painted of the Polkinghorne trail through the headlines has often been less than reflective of the upsetting details shared over the last eight weeks: “Most scandalous trial of the century”, “Polkinghorne ‘consumed by sex’”, “Polkinghorne goes shopping at the sex supermarket”, to name a few.

The story within the trial is incredibly upsetting, but the spectacle of scandal may have been enough to draw many of us into it. Like the coverage of the Lauren Dickason trial, it’s almost too ugly to look away, and we’re given access to every tidbit heard by the court. A mission to get the full story can be a slippery slope to becoming consumed by it.

Despite his not guilty verdict, the name Philip Polkinghorne may now forever hang in New Zealand’s hall of infamy, alongside David Bain and Mark Lundy. Maybe we’ll let him fade into obscurity, until a true crime podcast or a kind-of exposé revealing his new life in Cambridge brings him back into the public psyche. Hopefully one name remembered as well as his, with less vulturism, is Pauline Hanna’s.