Kerr said the last independently verified sighting of Haigh was at her flat on June 2. Robert Geeves was with her.
Haigh, who had an intellectual disability and had been assessed at the age of 18 as having the mental age of a 12 to 13-year-old, gave birth to a son in January 2002. The birth certificate did not record the name of the father, Kerr told the court.
Robert and Anne Geeves outside their farm at Kingsvale, near Young, in 2009. Credit: Lee Besford
She had moved onto the Geeves’ rural property Huntley in 2000, and Robert Geeves, then 40, had commenced a sexual relationship with the naive and intellectually impaired teenager, Kerr said.
She moved into her own flat in 2001, where she was visited by Robert, and lived between the two properties.
Kerr foreshadowed the court would hear evidence that Anne Geeves urged the couple’s adult son to acknowledge the baby as his brother and said words to the effect of: “Haven’t you heard of a surrogate mother?”
He said there would also be evidence the Geeves “plant[ed] a seed that Amber was suicidal” and was not a good mother before she disappeared without a trace.
Amber Haigh, 19, disappeared in 2002.
Public Defender Michael King, acting for Anne Geeves, said his client had “no motive to kill Amber, or even wish her dead” and his client maintained she had last seen the 19-year-old when the couple dropped her at Campbelltown Railway Station on June 5, 2002, to visit her ailing father.
“Anne’s only concern was to look after the child that Robert had brought into their own relationship, whether she was happy about that or not,” King said.
“Anne Geeves did not want Amber to be a surrogate mother for her, whatever that term might mean.”
She did not kill Haigh and nor did she stand by as her husband killed her, King said, and to her knowledge “Robert Geeves did not kill her”. His client believed locals had been “all too quick to point the finger” at the couple, he said.
Public Defender Paul Coady, for Robert Geeves, said it was not in dispute that Haigh’s child was fathered by him while he was married to Anne Geeves.
“He has denied being in any way involved in her disappearance or murder,” Coady said.
“Many witnesses harboured grievances or suspicions particularly against Mr Geeves.”
He said the court would need to sort rumour, innuendo, suspicion and community distaste from admissible evidence.
Coady said the relationship between the Geeves and Amber was less suspicious, and perhaps more supportive, than others believed.
Of the alleged motive articulated by the Crown, Coady said that “not only is there insufficient reliable evidence to support such a motive … the motive itself proves to be self-destructive”.
Killing Haigh would have been a “dramatic and drastic step” in circumstances where Robert Geeves was already in the lives of Haigh and their son, and Anne Geeves had formed a bond with the child.
