by Eavesdropping devices planted in the home of a New South Wales couple accused of murder have revealed the two discussed allegations that the husband tied up and raped his teenage lover while the wife filmed. They make no admissions about the secret recordings but say, “there is not enough evidence to support it”.
Amber Haigh, who had an intellectual disability, was 19 when she disappeared from the NSW Riverina in June 2002, leaving her five-month-old son behind.
Now Haigh’s lover and father of her child, Robert Geeves, 64, and his wife, Anne Geeves, also 64, are on trial for her alleged murder. Both pleaded not guilty.
The Geeveses told the police that they saw Haigh on the evening of 5 June 2002, when they drove her from their home in Kingsvale to Campbelltown railway station, from where Haigh was due to catch a train to visit her father who was receiving died in hospital. Haigh never came. No trace of her has been found since.
The last independent sighting of Haigh was three days earlier, in the company of Robert Geeves on 2 June 2002, in the town of Young.
While the Geeveses were being interviewed by police in July 2002, detectives planted listening devices in their home and car. A mistake was made on the job – including placing the main device near a microwave which distorted the sound – so much of the recording is unintelligible or inaudible.
The edited and transcribed content of the tapes was played to the court: these are disputed at key points, but much of the recorded evidence is not in dispute.
Police told the Geeveses they had suspected Haigh of being missing since the first weeks of their investigation. In the tapes, the couple can be heard complaining of harassment from police who “can’t find anything”.
At one point in the tape, Anne and Robert Geeves are discussing their police inquiries separately from detectives at Young police station.
Related: Police said Anne Geeves was the ‘mastermind’ in Amber Haigh’s alleged murder, court hears
The couple complain that the police kept them up late and did not allow them food, while repeatedly questioning them about Haigh’s disappearance: an attempt to “grill us”, says Robert Geeves.
Discussing the police’s questions, Anne Geeves says: “They didn’t give up the video tapes”.
Robert Geeves replies implicitly, before Anne Geeves continues: “They didn’t bring up that you raped her while I was taking photographs.”
At another point in the tape played in court, the couple can be heard discussing the allegations against them with a third person, whose identity is unknown.
Anne Geeves says: “They didn’t have enough evidence. What they were saying happened, she didn’t have enough evidence to back it up.”
A third replied: “What were they saying? On what grounds?”
Robert Geeves says: “I tied Amber up and raped her. Sky is the limit. Sky is the absolute limit.”
Later in the tape, Robert and Anne Geeves discuss the allegation again with a third party, who is not a lawyer.
Anne Geeves says she has been accused of having “everyone [Haigh] has been with has raped her. Robert raped her several times and I watched with a video camera.”
The unknown person says: “Did the police search video cameras? Did they have a search warrant?”
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“No,” answered Anne Geeves, “they came here the other day and wanted to look at … in Amber’s room.”
The third party tells the Geeveses that if they were “prime suspects” the police would be searching their entire house. “You’re not the prime suspects then.”
“Well, we are,” answered Anne Geeves, “because we were the last to see her. They didn’t find any evidence and they can’t because there’s nothing to find.”
At another point in the recording, Anne Geeves says the police “can’t find anything”.
“Well, we haven’t done anything to get him,” she tells her husband. “How long are they going to harass us?”
The court heard that when the couple were arrested in 2022, police told Anne Geeves that detectives believed the Geeveses had conspired to kill Haigh and that they used pigs together to dispose of her body.
Anne Geeves denied killing Haigh, saying she last saw her alive in Campbelltown: “I’m hoping she’s still down there somewhere and she’ll come back”.
Several witnesses in this trial earlier testified that Haigh had revealed to them that Robert Geeves would tie her up and have sex with her.
Related: Police allege couple murdered Amber Haigh and used pigs to dispose of their bodies, court hears
The prosecution closed its case on Friday. Counsel for Robert Geeves and Anne Geeves did not call any witnesses and told the court that they would rely on the evidence already provided in the trial.
Robert and Anne Geeves chose not to give evidence in their defence, as is their legal right.
Final submissions will begin on Monday 12 August. More than 130 exhibits have been produced in this trial, including witness statements, police reports, Christmas and birthday cards given to Haigh by the Geeveses and handwritten letters Haigh wrote in the weeks and months before her disappearance.
Also shown is video evidence of search warrants executed at Haigh’s one-bedroom flat in Young, and at the Geeveses’ property in Kingsvale, as well as recorded police interviews with Robert and Anne Geeves, interviewed separately.
The court hears that Amber was removed from the equation
Haig’s disappearance in the Riverina, an agricultural region of south-west NSW, is an ongoing mystery.
Her body was never found, but a coroner ruled she died of “homicide or misadventure”.
The prosecution alleged in court that Haigh – described in court as a “surrogate mother” – was used by Robert and Anne Geeves because they wanted another child.
The prosecution alleged that when Haigh’s baby was born, they tried to “take her out of the equation” by killing her. The court heard that Haigh “loved” her five-month-old son and “would never let [him] out of sight”.
The Geeveses told police they last saw Haigh on June 5, 2002 after dropping her off at Campbelltown train station. They claim they haven’t heard from her since.
They told Haig police they were willing to leave their infant son in their custody.
The Geeveses reported Haigh missing two weeks later, on 19 June 2002.
The court previously heard that the Geeveses had one child together – a son the same age as Haigh, who went before – but the couple wanted more children, having suffered three miscarriages and a stillbirth. after that.
“The theory of the crown’s case is that the Geeveses always intended to take custody and care [the child] from Omra, but they knew that to do that they had to take Omra out of the equation … so, the crown says, they killed her.”
Lawyers for Robert and Anne Geeves argued that the case against the couple was flawed, claiming that “community theology” of Robert Geeves’ relationship with a “much younger woman with an intellectual disability” fueled “gossip and innuendo”.
“Everything they did was viewed with a cloud of distrust and suspicion,” the court heard.
The single judge trial, before justice Julia Lonergan, continues in Wagga Wagga.
