Citation: R v Geeves; R v Geeves (No. 7) [2024] NSWSC 1168
Court: Supreme Court of NSW
Date: 16 September 2024
Judge: Lonergan J
Background
Robert and Anne Geeves were charged with the murder of Amber Haigh, a 19-year-old woman who was last reliably seen on 2 June 2002 and has never been found. Robert was the father of Amber's baby, born in January 2002. Amber had been living between her own small flat in Young and the Geeves' rural property at Kingsvale, New South Wales. She was a vulnerable young woman with epilepsy, a history of childhood abuse and cognitive difficulties, and limited family support.
The Crown alleged that Robert and Anne entered into a joint criminal enterprise to murder Amber in order to obtain custody of her baby. The accused denied any involvement. They told police in June and July 2002 that on 5 June 2002 they drove Amber to Campbelltown railway station so she could travel to Sydney to visit her gravely ill father, and had not heard from her since. They reported her missing to police on 19 June 2002.
The trial proceeded before Lonergan J sitting alone, by consent under s 132 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW). The hearing spanned 28 sitting days. The Crown presented a circumstantial case only: Amber's body was never found, no cause or time of death was identified, and no direct evidence of any act of killing was led.
Legal Issues
- Whether the circumstantial evidence established beyond reasonable doubt that Amber Haigh is dead
- Whether the Crown proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had a motive to kill Amber in order to obtain custody of her baby (the first indispensable intermediate fact)
- Whether the Crown proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did not drive Amber to Campbelltown railway station on 5 June 2002 (the second indispensable intermediate fact)
- Whether the Crown proved beyond reasonable doubt a joint criminal enterprise to murder Amber
- Whether the accused suffered forensic disadvantage from the approximately 20-year delay in prosecution, warranting directions under s 165B of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW)
- Whether a direction under s 165 of the Evidence Act was required regarding Amber's out-of-court statements about alleged mistreatment
Decision
Preliminary: Amber Haigh is dead
The court found beyond reasonable doubt that Amber Haigh is dead (at [396]). The evidence showed a complete absence of any signs of life after 5 June 2002: no access to her bank account, Medicare, Centrelink, epilepsy prescriptions, or contact with any person, over a period of more than 22 years. The court further found that Amber probably died on or before 19 June 2002, the next pension payment day on which money entered her account but was never withdrawn. The court declined to find beyond reasonable doubt that she died "between 1 and 6 June 2002" as alleged in the indictment, because the evidence did not support that precision (at [397]).
Indispensable Intermediate Fact 1: Motive to kill
The Crown's case required proof beyond reasonable doubt that Robert and Anne sought to kill Amber in order to take custody of her baby. The court rejected this. There was no satisfactory evidence that Anne and Robert held a desire for more children at the relevant time. The medical records for Anne showed no indication of such a desire after 1994. Evidence that the Geeves "wanted" the baby was characterised as old, anecdotal or third-hand (at [406]). The court found that the Geeves provided genuine practical assistance to a disadvantaged young woman, and declined to draw any sinister inference from that assistance (at [409]). The court also found the evidence did not support assertions that the Geeves controlled Amber's finances (at [416]-[418]) or isolated her from her family (at [412]). The so-called high-water mark of evidence of Anne's alleged plan to take the baby was described by the court as "shallow," being an unreliable third-hand account from a witness the court found generally unreliable (at [147]).
Indispensable Intermediate Fact 2: The Campbelltown account
The Crown also needed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did not drive Amber to Campbelltown station on 5 June 2002. The court found this was not proved. The accused's account was internally consistent, consistently told across multiple interviews, and not inherently implausible (at [414]). It was corroborated by a phone call Robert made to his employer that evening explaining his tiredness after the drive, and by Robert's absence from work the following day (at [414]). The ATM balance inquiry and cash withdrawal of $500 at Campbelltown at 8:48-8:49pm on 5 June 2002 was consistent with Amber's established pattern of withdrawing all available funds on pension payment days (at [415]).
Overall verdict
Because neither indispensable intermediate fact was proved beyond reasonable doubt, the court found the Crown's circumstantial case failed. The court was not satisfied that the accused's account may not be true, and held that in those circumstances acquittal was required (at [419]). Both Robert and Anne Geeves were found not guilty of murder (at [420]).
Forensic disadvantage and evidence directions
The court accepted that the 20-year delay in prosecution caused specific forensic disadvantage to the accused, including the unavailability for cross-examination of several witnesses who had died, and the loss of a contemporaneous diary of a key witness (at [368]). The court gave itself a s 165B direction accordingly. The court also gave itself a s 165 direction regarding the hearsay statements made by Amber to various people about alleged mistreatment, noting that those accounts required careful evaluation for both truth and reliability (at [371]).
Orders Made
- Both Robert Geeves and Anne Geeves were found not guilty of murder.
Key Takeaways
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In a judge-alone trial involving a wholly circumstantial case, a "links in a chain" structure requires each indispensable intermediate fact to be proved beyond reasonable doubt independently. Failure to establish either link is sufficient to defeat the prosecution's case, regardless of the overall volume of circumstantial evidence (at [398]-[404]).
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Where the accused provide an account to police that the tribunal of fact finds may be true, acquittal is required even if that account is not believed in full. The standard is not whether the account is believed, but whether it can be excluded beyond reasonable doubt (at [361], [419]).
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Under s 165B of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), a s 165B direction requires specific identification of forensic disadvantage and evidence that the lost opportunity was potentially exculpatory. Delay alone, or generic reference to witnesses' faded memories, does not suffice: the accused must identify concretely what they were deprived of (at [364]-[368]).
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Evidence from covert listening devices requires careful contextual analysis. The Supreme Court declined to treat selective de-contextualised references to a deceased person in past or present tense as evidence of guilty knowledge, describing the Crown's grammatical argument as a "game in which the Court should not and will not indulge" (at [338]).
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Hearsay accounts of a deceased complainant's out-of-court statements, admitted for a hearsay purpose, must be assessed with particular caution where the statements were made by a person with cognitive difficulties who, as the court found, sometimes said things for attention or effect rather than to accurately describe events. A s 165 direction was appropriate in those circumstances (at [371]).
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Legislation
- Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 (NSW)
- Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 (NSW)
- Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW)
- Evidence Act 1995 (NSW)
Cases
- Dawson v R [2024] NSWCCA 98
- Fox v Percy (2003) 214 CLR 118; [2003] HCA 22
- Hayward v R (2018) 97 NSWLR 852; [2018] NSWCCA 104
- DS v R [2018] NSWCCA 195
- R v Stewart (2001) 52 NSWLR 301; [2001] NSWCCA 260
- The Queen v Carroll (2002) 213 CLR 635; [2002] HCA 55
- TO v R [2017] NSWCCA 12