In the months after Amber Haigh disappeared, the father of her infant son – the man now accused of her murder – was resigned to losing custody of the child, but said he was doing his best to “be strong”.
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.
Under cross-examination in the New South Wales supreme court on Tuesday, Jacqueline Thompson, a former department of community services (Docs) child protection worker, was taken to file notes from a home visit she made to the Geeves’s home on 30 July 2002, a month after Haigh disappeared.
Michael King, acting for Anne Geeves, asked Thompson about “a number of things” she had been told about Robert Geeves before the meeting.
“One of the things that you had been told in preparation for your home visit was a concern that Robert Geeves was in a ‘precarious emotional state’?” he asked.
“Yes,” Thompson replied.
“That he was threatening suicide?” King asked.
“Yes,” Thompson said.
“That he was consuming excessive amounts of alcohol and drugs?”
“I can’t recall the actual specifics.”
“That there were fears that the child would be taken off him but he was resigned to it?”
“Yes.”
In notes taken at the meeting, Thompson recorded the Geeves being asked: “Since Amber went missing, how are you both coping?”
Robert Geeves replied: “We have to be strong, get up, look in the mirror, go to work.”
He denied any problem with alcohol or that he was depressed. Thompson’s notes record the house was in suitable condition for an infant child.
Haigh’s baby was ultimately taken from the Geeveses on 9 August 2002, less than a fortnight after the home visit and two months after Haigh disappeared.
Thompson was also cross-examined over her interactions with Haigh in the months before the young mother disappeared, in particular Thompson’s concerns Haigh was being manipulated by the Geeveses.
Thompson had previously told the court there were concerns over Robert Geeves’s criminal history, Haigh’s intellectual capacity and the nature of her relationship with the Geeveses, particularly living in the isolation of their property in Kingsvale.
Thompson said she sought to understand whether Haigh was being held at the Geeves home “against her will”, or being manipulated by the older couple.
“When you’ve got a mum who’s got an intellectual disability who has experienced such abuse by so many people growing up, and is so vulnerable, it was good to clarify what her plans were,” Thompson said.
Thompson told the court Haigh said to her she was not worried about the Geeveses taking her baby from her and that she had not been tied up or sexually assaulted by Robert Geeves – allegations which had been raised with Docs workers by others who knew Haigh.
Under re-examination, Thompson told the court that while she took Haigh’s denial of any assault “at face value … with my experience as a child protection worker, I know people may not disclose that … even if it is happening: they may deny it, out of fear, or may not be ready to talk about any abuse”.
Also on Tuesday, the court heard more evidence of Haigh’s personality and her ambitions for independence in the months before her disappearance.
Janice Broderick was a real estate agent who let a small bedsit to a teenaged Haigh in the town of Young. She told the court she remembered Haigh coming into her office “very clearly”.
“She was attractive, long, light brown hair, she was … vivacious – full of joy, full of youth.”
The pair formed “a bit of an aunty-child relationship”, Broderick told the court, based largely on Haigh dropping in to chat “even when I was busy”.
“Mostly she’d be telling me about where she had been. I’d be going ‘cluck cluck’ about this, or ‘cluck’ about that.”
Broderick said Haigh struggled to comprehend the mechanics of renting and that she needed a care worker, and for her rent to be paid automatically from her welfare payments.
Inspections were rare, but she said Haigh kept her bedsit “like a 12-year-old would keep it”.
“There wasn’t much of an effort to turn it into a home. It was pretty cold comfort.”
She said she met Robert Geeves only once, when he, Haigh and their child came to her real estate office. Haigh introduced Geeves as “the daddy” of her son.
Broderick said Haigh adored her son “like a child with a kitten … he was a good looking baby wrapped in a bunny rug”.
Broderick told the court she did not know Robert Geeves was married to Anne Geeves.
The trial has heard evidence on Haigh’s ability to parent her newborn son. Reports discussed in evidence noted Haigh would sometimes give her baby to other people to burp after breastfeeding, presented as a suggestion she was not coping with the demands of motherhood.
On Tuesday, Justice Julia Lonergan commented to a male-dominated bar table that for new mothers, breastfeeding can be “relentless”.
“It was a genuine attempt at assistance for the bar table,” she said from the bench. “Having been the mother of a newborn baby and observing that probably nobody else at the bar table has … I just thought the reality of the relentlessness of it was something worth mentioning.”
Haigh’s unresolved disappearance has been an enduring mystery in NSW’s Riverina. Haigh’s body has never been found, but the court has heard that a coroner 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.
Haigh was last seen on 5 June 2002. The Geeveses say they drove her that evening from Kingsvale to Campbelltown railway station so she could visit her dying father in hospital, and have not heard from her since.
They told police Haigh willingly left her infant son in their custody.
The Geeveses reported Haigh missing a fortnight later, on 19 June 2002.
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,” crown prosecutor Paul Kerr said.
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.
