A couple accused of murdering teenager Amber Haigh have been left under a “cloud of mistrust and suspicion” and no evidence was found when police bugged their home, their lawyer has said.
Robert Samuel Geeves, 64, and Anne Margaret Geeves, 64, will soon learn their fate after going on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after denying charges they murdered the young mother, who disappeared while living on her Kingsvale property in regional New South Wales more than 20 years ago.
They faced a trial before a single judge, Judge Julia Lonergan, who on Wednesday reserved judgment after overseeing a nearly eight-week trial.
Ms Haigh, 19, who had an intellectual disability and suffered from epilepsy, was living with the couple when she disappeared in June 2002. The Crown has accused the couple of killing her to gain custody of a young child.
Both have pleaded not guilty to murder and the court was told that Ms Haigh was last seen when she was dropped off at Campbelltown train station on June 5, 2002, so she could travel to western Sydney to visit her sick and dying father.
The couple reported Amber missing to Young Police Station on June 19, 2002, and had been under a cloud of suspicion from the community and police ever since, Ms Geeves’ lawyer Michael King told the court during his closing arguments on Wednesday.
‘Fog of mistrust and suspicion’
Ms Haigh disappeared from her property in Kingsvale, near Young, her body was never found and she never contacted her relatives.
Amber Haigh, 19, with her son Royce in 2002. Amber was last seen at Campbelltown train station in Sydney’s south-west on 5 June 2002.
During his closing address to the court, Mr King said: “People in the community around Young have thought that Robert Geeves has been guilty of many things since the 1980s.”
The court was told that in 1986 Mr Geeves harboured two schoolgirls who had run away from home.
“At some point word spread throughout the community that Robert Geeves had tied these girls up and put them in a silo,” King said.
‘Everyone in the community was willing to believe that story for many, many years. It was passed down and became fact.’
He said Mr Geeves came under further suspicion in 1993 when a woman he was dating was shot in the face, the court was told.
“Anyone who knew him would think he was guilty,” King said.
Mr King told the court that in 2001, Mr Geeves began having sexual relations with Ms Haigh.
She said having sex with a teenager with intellectual disabilities was a “very bad decision” and generated more displeasure in the community.
“Everything the Geeves have done has been viewed by all who have encountered them with a cloud of mistrust and suspicion,” King said.
Anne Margaret Geeves (centre) is on trial in the Supreme Court of New South Wales
What happened to Amber Haigh?
And Mr King said that continued when they walked into Young police station on June 19, two weeks after Ms Haigh was last seen, and reported her missing.
He said that from the beginning of the police investigation, officers presumed Geeves was guilty.
He attacked the Crown Prosecution Service’s case against both Geeves, describing it as “a case that, frankly, nobody understands”.
Mr King said it was not known where, when and how Ms Haigh was allegedly killed.
He said it was only in Crown prosecutor Paul Kerr’s closing arguments on Monday that the theory that she was killed on her way to Sydney on June 5, 2002, was raised.
Robert Samuel Geeves (right) was arrested in May 2002. Photo: Supplied/NSW Police.
He argued that the police at the time could not disprove that the Geeves made the trip to Campbelltown and therefore the court could not do so either.
Mr King said that during an interview with police, Ms Geeves described a hot dog van at a petrol station where she said they asked for directions to Campbelltown train station, described a one-way street and drew an accurate diagram of the station car park.
“If the Crown’s case is that Anne Geeves never made that car journey, she has a pretty good knowledge of the details that would really only be expected if she had been there,” King said.
The police bugs
The court was told listening devices were placed inside the Geeves’ home and car as part of the police investigation.
But Mr King argued there was no incriminating evidence on any of the tapes.
“In my respectful opinion, there is no suggestion in these recordings that the Geeves are in any way guilty of anything,” King said.
Mr King pointed to a conversation picked up by a police listening device in which Ms Geeves expressed anger towards Ms Haigh.
Ms Haigh, 19 (pictured), who had an intellectual disability and suffered from epilepsy, was living with the Geeves when she disappeared in June 2002.
The conversation took place two days after police raided her farm in Kingsvale and Ms Geeves said on the recording “this is your fault”, the court was told.
“So she says ‘I don’t care anymore, if you come back you can pack your things and leave,'” King told the court.
“… That is, in my view, extremely powerful evidence supporting the view that Anne Geeves was not of a guilty mind,” King said.
Judge Lonergan will issue her ruling at a later date.