Woman who says Ben Roberts-Smith punched her sustained an injury in a fall earlier on same night, defamation trial hears

Ben Roberts-Smith has said Person 17’s allegations that he punched her were a ‘fabrication’. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

A woman who accuses Ben Roberts-Smith of punching her in the face during a late-night argument in a Canberra hotel sustained a large haematoma on her head falling down the stairs at Parliament House earlier in the night, a federal court defamation trial has heard.

The woman, with whom Roberts-Smith was having an affair during 2017 and 2018, has previously given evidence a black eye she sustained that night was the result of Roberts-Smith punching her, knocking her backwards on to a bed.