A woman who claims Ben Roberts-Smith punched her in the face has been accused of inventing the allegation and telling barefaced lies in court.
Codenamed Person 17, the woman was in a relationship with Mr Roberts-Smith in 2017 and 2018 while they were both married to other people.
On Tuesday, she tearfully told a Federal Court hearing how their intense relationship had culminated in the war hero having her followed, deleting messages off her phone, making veiled threats, punching her, and taking naked photos of her while she was asleep.
The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times are being sued by Mr Roberts-Smith after reporting claims he committed war crimes in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2012, as well as domestic violence and bullying allegations.
The 43-year-old denies the allegations.
On Wednesday, lawyers acting for him suggested Person 17 had sustained a black eye on the night of a function in Canberra when she "bashed" her head on stairs during a drunken fall.
She previously told the court she wanted to go to hospital after the fall, but Mr Roberts-Smith said they should return to the hotel where he would look after her.
Instead, when the pair entered their room, she says he took her by the shoulders, began shaking her, and punched her in the eye.
In the following days, the pair agreed to end the relationship, the court has heard, but Person 17 asked to see him one last time so that it would end on better terms.
She wouldn't have done that if he had actually hit her five or six days before, Mr Roberts-Smith's barrister Bruce McClintock said.
"It is not a good indication of fear, is it, if you want to replicate the very situation where the incident that you say happened had occurred?" he asked.
Person 17 responded: "I was simultaneously in love with him and afraid of him."
The woman also told the court that two days before their final meeting, she was approached on a beach by a stranger who showed her images of her having sex with Mr Roberts-Smith.
She says the man gave her an ultimatum to tell Mr Roberts-Smith's wife or they would become public.
Within days the woman visited Mr Roberts-Smith's house and told his wife about the affair, but says she did so to put a final stop to it.
She said she did not tell Mr Roberts-Smith about the man at the time because it crossed her mind that he might be involved.
Mr McClintock accused her of fabricating that story too.
"Can you tell me what interest my client would have in you going to his wife or the photographs becoming public?"
Person 17 replied: "The interest in me going to his wife would be so that he could do what he ended up doing, and (that is) making me out to be the bad person in this situation."
Mr McClintock said her answer was "a straight-out barefaced lie", asserting there was no man on the beach and she had told Mr Roberts-Smith's now-estranged wife out of spite.
"What you really wanted was to end my client's marriage so you could have him for yourself," he said.
"It was either that or just a straight-out act of vindictive revenge."
Person 17 also told the court she had in 2018 contacted one of the journalists now being sued to learn whether she would be outed in their coverage of Ben Roberts-Smith.
She told Nick McKenzie about the alleged assault, and he organised for her to speak to federal police, she said.
She ultimately decided not to go through with the complaint, largely because she was scared Mr Roberts-Smith would seek payback.
"When I heard about the war crimes allegations and realised that there were other people saying the same sort of things about Ben, there was part of me that wanted to do something, but in the end I just thought it was ... not in my best interest to do it."
The trial before Justice Anthony Besanko continues.
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