Dozens of newly released documents have revealed intimate moments of Ben Roberts-Smith‘s alleged “affair” including images of his “mistress” in a bed with a head injury that the elite soldier has denied was caused by domestic violence.
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine newspapers saying they falsely accused him of war crimes but also falsely painted him as a domestic violence abuser.
As the marathon trial drilled into the war crime allegations on Wednesday, the Federal Court released dozens of documents that had been entered into evidence in June 2021 related to the domestic violence allegations.
The documents contain marriage counselling notes between Mr Roberts-Smith and his now ex wife Emma Roberts, medical records, emails and text messages.
Some of those messages are between Mr Roberts-Smith and a married woman known as Person 17.
The court has previously heard the pair had been dating and had a volatile relationship – Mr Roberts-Smith maintains he dated Person 17 while separated from his wife.
Person 17, the court has heard, had hired a car and driven to Mr Roberts-Smith‘s marital home to expose their relationship in April 2018.
The text messages, released on Wednesday, show Mr Roberts-Smith accusing the woman of “outright blackmail” in the hours after she confronted his then wife.
“Please don‘t waste your time with intimidation or payback,” Person 17 wrote to Mr Roberts-Smith, the texts show.
“The benefit of seeing what you are capable of a few weeks back & knowing the threats you‘ve made to me since is that I immediately put in place ’insurance’ in the event that anything should happen to me or my family.”
Mr Roberts-Smith has steadfastly denied he ever threatened Person 17 and told the court she had lied on multiple occasions – his lawyers describe her as a “fabulist”.
Person 17 is expected to testify, for Nine, that Mr Roberts-Smith struck her after she got drunk at a swanky party one month earlier, in Canberra in 2018.
Mr Roberts-Smith totally denies that saying Person 17 fell down the stairs while leaving the venue and ended up with a black eye.
She apologised for her behaviour in text messages, released by the court, the day after the party.
Text messages which Mr Roberts-Smith sent in response say that he stayed up worried about her wellbeing.
Mr Roberts-Smith told the court a similar version of events – that he stayed up all night tending to the injured and intoxicated woman at the Hotel Realm and photographed her injury.
Mr Roberts-Smith said the allegations were devastating to his career as a public speaker and he finds domestic violence to be a “disgusting act of cowardice”.
The documents, released on Wednesday, contain an email chain where Nine‘s lawyers request those images.
The images, with Person 17‘s face covered by a black box, appear to show a woman in bed.
The lawyers for Mr Roberts-Smith, in the emails, tell Nine‘s lawyers that the original images were deleted and all that remain are screenshots.
“Unbeknownst to (Mr Roberts-Smith), at some point his former wife, while searching his belongings and mobile phone, had taken photos of the images of Person 17,” Mr Roberts-Smith‘s lawyer wrote in the March 2021 email.
The court has heard Nine journalist Nick McKenzie played a role in the woman speaking to police.
Person 17 is expected to give evidence for Nine at a later date.
Also among the documents were character references for Mr Roberts-Smith including from friends and co-workers in his new job as an executive at Seven.
One reference, written by a “friend” and former SAS squadmate, says Mr Roberts-Smith had a reputation as an “exemplary leader” but now, since the emergence of the Nine articles, they avoid speaking about him.
Another friend, who holds prominent positions in Queensland university, tourism and sporting industries, said she had never seen Mr Roberts-Smith act with aggression toward women and has says the domestic violence allegations are “hard to believe”.
