A nurse who cared for Amber Haigh and her newborn baby called police over fears Haigh might have been held against her will by Robert and Anne Geeves, the couple now on trial for her murder, a court has heard.
Sue Powell told the New South Wales supreme court on Wednesday she visited Haigh’s flat in the Riverina town of Young in February 2002, to be told by a neighbour Haigh was at the Geeves house, and “not allowed to come into town”.
“A woman told me that she [Amber] had rung, and that she said ‘they would not let her come to town’,” Powell told the court on Wednesday. “So I then became concerned, and I just felt like she was possibly being held there against her will. So that’s when I rang police.”
Haigh was a 19-year-old mother when she vanished without trace from the Riverina in July 2002, leaving behind her five-month-old son, fathered by Robert Geeves.
More than two decades since her disappearance, Robert and Anne Geeves are facing trial charged with her murder. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The court heard on Wednesday that in the first weeks of her son’s life, Haigh was living between a small flat in the town of Young, her great-aunt’s home outside the village of Kingsvale, and the Geeves’ home next door.
Powell, a child and family nurse in Young called as a prosecution witness, was taken to case notes she made in 2002 which record Haigh was not present during an arranged visit to her Young flat in early February.
The notes state: “Neighbour stated that Amber had called and said ‘they [the Geeves] won’t let me come into town’.
“It sounded like Amber was being held against her will,” the notes state.
Powell said she called police who collected Haigh from the Geeves home and took her to her great-aunt’s neighbouring home.
But Powell gave evidence she also had to remove Haigh from her great-aunt’s home after discovering her hiding with her son in a bedroom during a violent family dispute.
“There was a domestic dispute going on in the house, there was a lot of yelling and screaming going on in the kitchen. I found Amber in her bedroom, holding the baby … she looked terrified.
“I decided that I couldn’t leave her in that house, with that domestic violence happening.”
In her contemporaneous notes, read in court, Powell recorded: “Amber greatly relieved to be away from the fighting which she said had been happening every time family members visited (most days)”.
The court heard that later in February 2002, Haigh called Powell asking if she could return to the Geeves home. Powell gave evidence she told Haigh it was “her choice” where she lived but that, in Powell’s professional opinion, “it was safer for her and her baby to stay at her flat in town”.
Asked why she held that opinion, Powell told the court: “I strongly felt that she was being taken advantage of. I felt that this was an arranged pregnancy”.
Powell told the court she believed Haigh was vulnerable because “she was quite childlike in her approach to things”.
Powell gave evidence that Haigh often appeared anxious. “If we asked too much about what was going on in the Geeves house, she was frightened.”
Powell said Haigh told her during a meeting about her baby’s health and ongoing care: “‘Robert decides this’, or ‘Robert decides that’. The commonest comment I heard was ‘Robert wouldn’t like that’.”
Powell told the court she had repeated contact with police about Haigh and her baby, as well as with the department of community services, and disability services.
Haigh’s unresolved disappearance has been an enduring mystery and her body has never been found. She left behind her five-month-old son whom, the court has heard, she “adored” and “never let out of her sight”.
The prosecution has alleged in court that Haigh – who had an intellectual disability and was described in court as “very easily misled” – was used by the Geeveses as a “surrogate mother” because they wanted another baby.
It alleges that once Haigh’s baby was born – fathered by Robert Geeves – they sought to have her “removed from the equation” by killing her.
Haigh was last seen on 5 June 2002. The Geeves say they drove her that evening to Campbelltown railway station so she could visit her sick father, and have neither seen nor heard from her since, the court has heard.
They told police Haigh left her infant son in their custody.
The Geeves reported Haigh missing a fortnight later, on 19 June 2002. In 2011, a coroner ruled Haigh had died from “homicide or misadventure” sometime in 2002.
The supreme court has previously heard the Geeves 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 Geeves 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.”
The crown case is circumstantial, the court has heard, but in the absence of forensic evidence over Haigh’s disappearance will rely on witness testimony from people who knew Haigh, and were concerned she was being exploited and abused by Robert and Anne Geeves.
The court heard this week from a woman who said she met Haigh at a train station and that Haigh told her that Robert Geeves would ply her with alcohol before tying her to a bed and having sex with her.
The court has heard the crown case will also include evidence of phone intercepts – placed in the Geeves home and car in 2002 – that were re-transcribed in 2019, with significant discrepancies from the original transcripts discovered. These will be contested in court.
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 continues in Wagga Wagga.
