Robbie Geeves, the son of accused murderers Robert and Anne Geeves, has told a court his father having a child with his ex-girlfriend “was not right” and ruptured his relationship with his parents.
Married couple Robert and Anne Geeves, both 64, face one count each of murder over the suspected killing of Amber Haigh, who disappeared without trace in June 2002. The Geeves have both pleaded not guilty.
Robbie Geeves gave evidence in their murder trial in the New South Wales supreme court on Wednesday.
Robbie Geeves told the court he disapproved of his father’s relationship with Haigh because she was his ex-girlfriend.
When Haigh bore Robert Geeves’s baby in January 2002, he told his mother he did not want to see the baby, saying “it was not right”.
“My mother said ‘you’ve got a baby brother inside the hospital’. I said ‘no I don’t’.”
Haigh vanished five months later in June 2002.
Haigh’s unresolved disappearance has been an enduring mystery in the Harden area of the Riverina, where she was living at the time. The NSW government has offered $1m for information leading to a conviction over her disappearance and presumed murder.
The prosecution has alleged in court that Haigh was used by the Geeves as a “surrogate mother” because they wanted another baby, and, once Haigh’s baby was born – fathered by Robert Geeves – they sought to have her “removed from the equation” by killing her.
In tense evidence on Wednesday, Robbie Geeves said his mother pleaded with him to accept the baby his father had had with Haigh as his brother.
Robbie Geeves said his mother drove him to Young hospital promising “a surprise”, and then urged him to acknowledge the newborn as his “baby brother”.
“She wanted me to go into the hospital; I didn’t want to … because it wasn’t right.
“I don’t know how to say it in a nice way: she was my ex-girlfriend, you can’t have a baby brother to your ex-girlfriend.”
Robbie Geeves’s mother and father later brought the baby to his house late at night and urged him to acknowledge the child.
“My mum was at the door holding a baby, my dad was in the car parked out the front of the house.
“I didn’t want her to come inside, but it was freezing cold and it didn’t feel like a nice thing to do to leave her in the cold with a baby, so I let her come inside.”
Robbie Geeves testified his mother said to him: “Haven’t you ever heard of a surrogate mother?”
He told the court that his father threatened him and said he would throw a garden chair through his window – a threat that Robbie Geeves said was not followed through, but was of sufficient concern for him to take an AVO out against his father.
Robbie Geeves said the birth of the baby had ruptured his relationship with his parents.
He said he telephoned his mother and said: “I needed a bit of time to deal with things, so leave me alone for a while.
“From what I recall, I’m pretty sure she said ‘I might as well kill myself’.”
In the witness box on Wednesday, and in sitting in court after his evidence, Robbie Geeves did not acknowledge his parents as they sat in the dock. His mother wiped away tears as she looked towards her estranged son.
The court has previously heard Haigh was an intellectually disabled teenager from Sydney who had endured a “dysfunctional upbringing” and who had moved to the farming hamlet of Kingsvale, in the Riverina, to live with her great-aunt, in the late 1990s. That aunt lived next door to the Geeves’ then property, and Haigh later moved in with the Geeves.
Haigh’s uncle, Michael Haigh, gave evidence on Wednesday on Haigh’s living conditions at the Geeves’ property in Kingsvale.
He told the court when he visited the home: “I noticed where Amber’s room was. Just off the kitchen. A mattress probably four to five inches. No sheeting, no bedding, no drawers, no cupboards. That’s it. That’s where she stayed.”
The court has heard previously that Robert Geeves and Haigh would have sex “all the time” – sometimes watched by Anne Geeves – and that the missing teen had looked increasingly dirty and dishevelled in the lead-up to her disappearance.
Haigh disappeared sometime in June 2002. The Geeves say they drove her to Campbelltown railway station, from where she was to visit her sick father, on the evening of 5 June, and have neither seen nor heard from her since, the court has heard. They told police Haigh left her five-month-old 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. Her body has never been found.
The court has previously heard the Geeves had had only one child together – Robbie Geeves – but the couple wanted more, 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, because the Geeves knew that Amber would never voluntarily relinquish custody of [her child] and certainly not to them.
“When it became apparent that choosing their desired outcome would be more difficult than they first thought, the Geeves realised that a more fundamental action was needed. So, the crown asserts, they killed her.”
Lawyers for Robert and Anne Geeves said the case against the couple – now more than two decades old – was deeply flawed, arguing that “community distaste” at Robert Geeves’s 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.
“Many witnesses harboured grievances or suspicions particularly against Mr Geeves.”
The judge-alone trial, before Justice Julia Lonergan, continues in Wagga Wagga.
