A longtime friend of Russell Hill “almost fell on the floor” when he found out about Hill’s two-decade affair with Carol Clay, the Victorian supreme court has heard.
Robin Ashlin also said Hill loved the Wonnangatta Valley and did not mind sharing it with people, saying Hill was “happy as a pig in shit” camping there.
Former airline pilot Gregory Stuart Lynn has pleaded not guilty to murdering Hill and Clay in the state’s alpine region in March 2020.
Ashlin told Lynn’s double murder trial on Friday that he had known Hill for more than 25 years.
He suspected Hill and Clay were in a relationship after he bumped into them while visiting another friend for lunch, as “blind Freddy” could see they were more than friends.
But he was stunned when Robyn Hill, Russell’s wife, told him about the extent of the affair after the couple went missing.
Ashlin later told police he “almost fell on the floor” when Robyn told him that Clay had been on the scene about 20 years, even though he also thought of Hill as secretive.
She told Ashlin the pair had been childhood sweethearts, and had planned to both divorce their partners so they could be together. Clay had done so but Hill backed out, Ashlin said.
“It was something about Russell I never, ever thought of,” Ashlin told the court.
“A bloke in his 60s, 70s… what’s the go with one on the side, sort of thing? One’s enough trouble.”
Ashlin told Robyn Hill he thought she should go to police after Hill repeatedly failed to tune in to a nightly high frequency radio meeting.
The friends were amateur radio enthusiasts who tuned in with others at 6pm every night, but Hill did not join the meeting on 21, 22, and 23 March, which alarmed Ashlin.
“I think it’s time you went to the cops, because something’s not right,” he said he told Robyn Hill.
Ashlin also said Hill had an intimate knowledge of the Wonnangatta Valley, and had even been involved in building the Zeka track, one of the routes into the site, when he worked in the region as a logging contractor.
“If you wanted to know anything about the Wonnangatta Valley, just ask Russell, he knew every nook and cranny about the place,” Ashlin said.
“He’s probably been there more than anyone.”
Other radio enthusiasts who were long-term friends of Hill also gave evidence on Friday.
James Francis said he had camped multiple times with Hill and Clay, and told the court he had been “slightly surprised” when the affair was first revealed.
He said Hill asked to join him on a caravanning trip and told him “I’ll be bringing a woman with me and it’s not my wife, is that OK?”
Francis said he subsequently learned more about the couple’s relationship over their “many campfire chats”.
The pair met as teenagers and “they had drifted apart, and interestingly neither of them could actually remember why they had drifted apart, they just had, and they had married other people”, Francis said.
Clay remained a family friend before a romantic relationship developed, he said.
The hearing continues.
• This article was amended on 18 May 2024. A previous version incorrectly referred to witness Robin Ashlin as Robert Ashlin.
