Madison Ashton: Why elite escort ‘disappeared’ before ex-fiance Philip Polkinghorne’s murder trial revealed

Australia’s most famous mistress and high-class escort, Madison Ashton “disappeared” just days before she was due to be the star witness in the salacious murder trial of her wealthy former fiancé.

Ms Ashton, also once the former mistress of the late Melbourne cardboard billionaire, Richard Pratt, had fled Australia and was never served with a subpoena requiring her to give evidence.

It can now be revealed that at the height of the eight-week trial of her former eye surgeon lover Philip Polkinghorne for murdering his wife Pauline Hanna, police were scouring the world looking for Ms Ashton, even calling the media in an unsuccessful attempt to track her down.

It has since been discovered the runaway Melbourne-based sex worker was on holiday with a friend in a European jaunt spanning London, Greece, Morocco, and Italy.

Mr Polkinghorne has now been found not guilty of murdering Ms Hanna, a senior New Zealand government health executive.

And Ms Ashton has hit out at New Zealand police after the verdict was handed down, saying they “botched “ the job.

Ms Ashton has said she did not want to cooperate because the police didn’t respect her and didn’t take her evidence seriously.

There is no suggestion that the former Australian Penthouse Pet, Ms Ashton, has done anything wrong.

But her intimate relationship with Mr Polkinghorne, their love messages, trysts, financial affairs, sex tapes, romance and plans to start a life together in Sydney featured prominently in the trial in Auckland’s High Court, even without her appearance.

Ms Ashton shot to national attention after she sued Mr Pratt’s estate for $10 million claiming he had promised to take care of her financially. She lost the case but outed herself as a sex worker and revealed she was also known as the high-class escort Christine McQueen.

In the intervening years, Ms Ashton continued her sex work career and struck up a relationship with both Mr Polkinghorne and his wife Ms Hanna when the Polkinghornes booked a sex session with Ms Ashton on a visit to Sydney more than a decade ago.

In 2021, on the Easter weekend, Ms Hanna was found dead in the multi-million-dollar home she shared with Mr Polkinghorne in Auckland.

Mr Polkinghorne was charged more than a year later and pleaded not guilty to strangling his wife and making the scene look like a suicide. He has always maintained his wife killed herself and he found her hanging when he awoke on Easter Monday morning.

The Crown case was that Mr Polkinghorne, 71, had been leading a double life using drugs and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Ms Ashton and other sex workers. Mr Polkinghorne has pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine and a meth pipe. He is yet to be sentenced for those offences.

The defence was that the couple, Mr Polkinghorne and Ms Hanna had an open, loving relationship and it was Ms Hanna’s historic struggle with depression that led her to suicide.

During the trial, Ms Ashton and Mr Polkinghorne’s relationship featured prominently with revelations Mr Polkinghorne had transferred more than $106,000 to the Sydney-based Ms Ashton before his wife died.

Police Constable Madeleine Palmer told the court that an examination of Mr Polkinghorne’s computer had revealed a sex tape of Mr Polkinghorne and Ms Ashton, documents showing a $90,000 loan to Ms Ashton and a confidentiality agreement between the pair.

Other documents also showed Mr Polkinghorne had bought Ms Ashton a washing machine, and they had had discussions about getting a home loan for a property as well as Mr Polkinghorne sending furniture to Sydney, in the days before Ms Hanna’s death.

The jury was told how Mr Polkinghorne lied to his wife about going to a wellness retreat over Christmas in 2019 and instead flew to Sydney and spent the holiday with Ms Ashton.

Mr Polkinghorne and Ms Ashton have been in a relationship since 2017 and it continued after Ms Hanna died, with the eye surgeon eventually asking her to marry him.

Messages between the pair showed Ms Ashton even telling Mr Polkinghorne what to wear at his wife’s funeral and then sometime later to get himself a lawyer.

Details were revealed about how Ms Ashton flew from Melbourne to meet Mr Polkinghorne for a weekend tryst at a luxury hunting lodge near Mount Cook just 25 days after the death of Ms Hanna.

But their loved-up weekend was interrupted by police who had a search warrant and seized Ms Ashton’s phones. Ms Ashton refused to give police the PIN codes to access the phones.

The court was told by the prosecution that Mr Polkinghorne had deleted his WhatsApp messages with Ms Ashton and had asked her to delete hers.

Other messages between the pair after Ms Hanna died were aired in court and included declarations from Mr Polkinghorne that his relationship with Ms Ashton would “last 100 years” and he wanted Ms Ashton in his life.

The court had also heard how Mr Polkinghorne transferred tens of thousands of dollars to personal bank accounts he had set up in Australia. It is unclear when exactly the pair broke off their engagement.

The prosecution suffered a major setback when Ms Ashton disappeared.

The jury was told Ms Ashton would be a witness, but the Crown case was forced to close without hearing from her.

The jury was never told why she did not appear.