Ben Roberts-Smith‘s alleged mistress is expected to appear before the defamation trial of the century this week, where lawyers will quiz her on a turbulent relationship with the famed former soldier.
Meanwhile, an SAS officer has told the court he knew it was wrong to speak to journalists to discredit Mr Roberts-Smith’s Victoria Cross award for bravery – but he did it anyway.
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine newspapers and journalists over a series of articles claiming he committed war crimes in Afghanistan, bullied other SAS soldiers and abused a woman they described as his “mistress”.
The retired soldier denies every allegation.
Nine claims Person 17, a lawyer who cannot be identified, dated Mr Roberts-Smith in late 2017 and 2018 while both were still married.
Mr Roberts-Smith has told the court he was separated from his now ex-wife during his relationship with Person 17.
The relationship was marred by mutual distrust and confrontations, the court has heard.
Nine’s most damaging claim is that Mr Roberts-Smith struck Person 17 in the face after she drunkenly fell down some stairs at a ritzy party in Canberra.
Mr Roberts-Smith told the court the fall is what injured the woman and he had stayed up all night caring for her.
On another occasion, the court has heard, Person 17 told Mr Roberts-Smith she was pregnant with his child and they organised for her to have an abortion in Brisbane.
Mr Roberts-Smith told the court he distrusted Person 17 and sent a private investigator to tail her to the clinic – and she emerged looking well.
However, Person 17 met with him at a hotel minutes later, Mr Roberts-Smith said, and appeared frail and sick.
Mr Roberts-Smith said he confronted Person 17 and she revealed she lied about the abortion – she had the procedure elsewhere.
The relationship self-destructed in early 2018, he told the court, when Person 17 showed up at his marital home and revealed herself to Mr Roberts-Smith’s then wife and family.
Person 17’s identity will not be revealed after she told the court, in an affidavit, that she feared people would harass her believing she was a “lying woman trying to bring down a war hero”.
Her evidence will mark a significant change in the trial which has seen Mr Roberts-Smith face his accusers within the SAS for weeks.
Amid a storm of damaging headlines in mid-2018, Mr Roberts-Smith hit back at those soldiers calling them “cowards” who were tearing him down from the shadows.
One of his most vehement critics within the SAS is a Warrant Officer Class Two known only as Person 7 who turned secret source for Nine.
Person 7 told the court he shared multiple allegations against Mr Roberts-Smith, including claims of war crimes he did not witness and rumours about the elite soldier’s personal life and family.
Some of the claims were just “petty, childish gossip”, he told Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Arthur Moses SC.
But, Person 7 told the court, he felt it was “a bit rich” for Mr Roberts-Smith to accuse him of cowardice and that motivated him to speak out.
“Wasn’t it a bit rich for you to speak to a journalist anonymously to accuse your colleague of a war crime?” Mr Moses asked.
“You could say it was a bit rich, I did the wrong thing and I knew I was doing the wrong thing… But I still did it,” the soldier responded.
Person 7 had also cast doubt on Mr Roberts-Smith’s many commendations, including the prized Victoria Cross, the top xjmtzywmilitary honour that thrust Mr Roberts-Smith into the national spotlight.
The Victoria Cross was awarded to Mr Roberts-Smith after the legendary battle of Tizak, in 2010, in which he stormed a Taliban machine gun nest to save his mates.
But Person 7 on Monday went line-by-line through Mr Roberts-Smith’s official commendation pointing out what he claims are “lies and embellishments”.
According to the citation, and the official record, Mr Roberts-Smith’s SAS patrol was pinned down by heavy machine gun fire.
Mr Roberts-Smith and a handful of other soldiers advanced on the machine guns, exposing themselves to near certain death to kill the Taliban militants.
Person 7 told the court he wasn’t “brave enough” to be at the front of the assault on the gunners but he concluded Mr Roberts-Smith and another senior soldier had effectively stolen the glory of another SAS operator.
“Are you suggesting Mr Roberts-Smith stole the credit that belonged to others in relation to the Victoria Cross citation?” Mr Moses asked.
“I believe Mr Roberts-Smith and Person 5 may have done that, yes,” Person 7 said.
“It’s a very serious allegation, yes, it’s a very serious thing to do.”
Person 7 disputed multiple parts of the citation – everything from the size of the compound‘s walls to the distance Mr Roberts-Smith ran to the gunners.
He told the court he heard Mr Roberts-Smith had thrown a grenade without removing its pin and one of the insurgents was unarmed.
The soldier who had his glory allegedly stolen was an SAS operator known as Person 4, the court heard.
Person 4, in his own evidence, told the court he became “bitter” that he did not get a Victoria Cross and claimed he had killed one of the machine gunners.
He also told the court he witnessed Mr Roberts-Smith kick an unarmed Afghan down a cliff before the man was executed by another SAS soldier.
Person 4 told the court he felt Person 7 and other anti-Roberts-Smith soldiers “manipulated” him to speak out against the Victoria Cross recipient using his bitterness about Tizak.
