Any CCTV footage that might have captured Amber Haigh’s last movements was lost because it was a fortnight before she was reported missing, and days later before any vision was requested by police, the NSW supreme court has heard.
Prosecutors also argued in court that the vanished teenager was not reported missing by the father of her baby – the man now accused of her murder – until others raised concerns she had not been seen.
Haigh was a 19-year-old new mother when she vanished without trace from the New South Wales Riverina in June 2002, leaving behind her five-month-old son.
Now, 22 years since her disappearance, the father of her child, 64-year-old Robert Geeves, and his wife, Anne Geeves, are on trial for her murder. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Haigh was reportedly last seen alive on 5 June 2002. The Geeveses would later tell police they drove her from their home in Kingsvale to Campbelltown train station from where she was to catch a train to visit her dying father in a Sydney hospital. The Geeveses told police Haigh left her five-month-old son with them.
Robert Geeves reported Haigh missing to police on 19 June, 14 days later.
But crown prosecutor Paul Kerr told the court on Monday – during legal argument about conversations police had with potential witnesses that “the crown says it wasn’t until Mr Geeves was alerted to the fact that others had noticed the disappearance of Amber Haigh that he went to the police and reported her as a missing person”.
Giving evidence to the court, former police officer Alex Illes said he was assigned responsibility for investigating Haigh’s disappearance on 21 June 2002.
He told the court on 24 June he requested CCTV footage from Campbelltown railway station, and a bank in Campbelltown where an ATM withdrawal had been made from Haigh’s account on 5 June. But he was told the footage at both locations was only held for 14 days before being erased.
No CCTV footage has ever been uncovered of Haigh on 5 June, despite investigations by police of premises in the street in Campbelltown where Haigh allegedly withdrew money, and of service stations along the Hume Highway.
Illes said he conducted a search of Haigh’s bedsit on 21 June, where he found “a large number of personal possessions” belonging to Haigh, but no sign of her. Decaying rubbish suggested the flat had been unoccupied “for some time”.
Illes also testified that Patricia Haigh, Amber Haigh’s aunt, had called police to tell them Amber had disclosed to her that Robert Geeves had tied her up and then had sex with her, while his wife, Anne, watched. He told the court that Patricia Haigh told him that Amber had described the incident as rape and said that it was videotaped.
Illes said that he asked Patricia Haigh to make a formal statement to police. Robert Geeves was identified as a “person of interest” (POI) by police. Illes recorded Haigh’s comments in his police notebook, which were read into court:
“The missing person stated that she had been raped and tied up by the POI and his wife,” the court heard. Amber Haigh said the alleged assault was videoed, the court heard.
Illes also recorded Patricia Haigh telling him: “All the POI and his wife wanted was a baby as the POI’s wife was unable to fall pregnant.”
Another witness, a former neighbour of Haigh’s, also testified on Monday that Haigh had described to her being tied up and filmed having sex.
Cindy Brown said Haigh had told her that “Robert Geeves tied her up and had sex with her”.
“There was a camera in the corner of their lounge room, in their house … that they had sex, [and] Anne Geeves was watching it after they had sex.”
Brown also testified she was at Haigh’s flat one day when Robert Geeves arrived, having been drinking at the nearby Mill Tavern.
“He wasn’t drunk or anything, but you could smell the grog on him.” Brown said Haigh appeared frightened of Geeves.
“She was scared … the way she was looking at him, acting nervous.”
Brown told the court Geeves had spoken “about how he killed his ex-wife: they had a fight and the gun went off”.
Brown said she was frightened by the conversation. “I just got scared and ran out”.
Haigh’s unresolved disappearance has been an enduring mystery in NSW’s Riverina, where she was last seen alive more than two decades ago. She left behind a five-month-old son who the court has heard she “adored” and “never let out of her sight”.
Haigh’s body has never been found, but a coroner has ruled she died from “homicide or misadventure”.
The prosecution has alleged in court that Haigh – described in court as “very easily misled” – was used by Robert and Anne Geeves as a “surrogate mother” because they wanted another baby.
The court has previously heard the Geeveses had had one child together – a son the same age as Haigh, who had previously dated her – but the couple wanted more children, having subsequently endured three miscarriages and a stillbirth.
“The crown case theory is that it was always the intention of the Geeveses to assume the custody and care of [the child] from Amber, but they knew that to do that, Amber had to be removed from the equation … so, the crown asserts, they killed her.”
Lawyers for Robert and Anne Geeves have argued the case against the couple – now more than two decades old – was deeply flawed, arguing that “community distaste” at Robert Geeves’ relationship with “a much younger woman with intellectual disabilities” fuelled “gossip and innuendo”.
“Everything they did was viewed through a haze of mistrust and suspicion,” the court has heard.
The judge-alone trial, before justice Julia Lonergan, continues in Wagga Wagga.
