A former Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) patrol commander has admitted in court he told comrades Ben Roberts-Smith’s Victoria Cross award was “in doubt” and that the war veteran was “a bully”.
Mr Roberts-Smith received the VC, the country’s highest military honour, for his actions during the 2010 Battle of Tizak in Afghanistan, when his patrol came under heavy enemy fire.
The veteran is suing The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times for defamation over what he says were false allegations of unlawful killings, bullying and domestic violence, published in 2018.
Codenamed Person 43, the witness was called by publisher Nine Entertainment and on Friday detailed his doubts about the VC citation.
“I have said that often it was in doubt and there should have been more investigation before the awarding of it,” he told the Federal Court.
Person 43 conceded he didn’t observe Mr Roberts-Smith’s actions in Tizak.
“The only witnesses were his team, there were no other witnesses,” he said.
“Does that mean it's in doubt?” barrister Arthur Moses SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith, asked.
“Absolutely,” the witness replied.
Person 43 admitted he told “a lot of people” about his “personal opinion”, which he said was formed when he became aware the award was being given.
“The awarding of the VC… was done in secrecy without involvement of the rest of the troop,” he said.
Person 43 said his opinion was also based on the fact the citation failed to mention that a comrade, Person 4, was alongside Mr Roberts-Smith during the mission, and the “actual wording of the award”, he believed, was “incorrect”.
He agreed he’d also told other colleagues Mr Roberts-Smith was “a bully” but said the VC and Mr Roberts-Smith’s behaviour were “two separate things”.
Under cross-examination from Mr Moses, Person 43 denied he was “bitter” about not receiving an award himself.
“I'm not an attention seeker,” he said.
He denied his evidence was designed to be “favourable” to the newspapers’ defence.
The court has heard Person 43 was present during a separate mission in April 2009 at a Taliban compound dubbed “Whiskey 108”.
He gave evidence of helping remove an “elderly” Afghan man from a secret tunnel, who he said would have then been searched and handcuffed before questioning.
The court has previously heard a man with a prosthetic leg was later seen dead, and Mr Roberts-Smith denies allegations he was responsible for an unlawful killing.
Person 43 told the court that immediately after the mission, rumours began to circulate that two PUCs (persons under control) had been “executed”.
“It was discussed a lot amongst a lot of people,” he said.
But Person 43 could not recall who he heard the rumours from and denied spreading them himself.
A previous witness, Person 41, claimed to have seen Mr Roberts-Smith “frogmarch” an Afghan man outside the compound and shoot him in the back with three to five rounds of machine gun fire.
Mr Roberts-Smith last year told the court he shot dead an armed insurgent who was coming around the corner of the compound.
The trial, before Justice Anthony Besanko, continues.
