In war, as in life, the most important characteristic of any relationship is trust. When soldiers go out on the battlefield, they trust their fellow soldiers with their lives. In a good marriage, partners trust each other with their emotional security, assuming that they will always act in their best interest.
Would you trust Ben Roberts-Smith with your life or your heart? Was he the sort of man to always have your back? This was the overarching thrust of the issues debated in the Federal Court this week, a crucial one in the defamation hearing brought by the decorated war veteran against three media outlets. It was the first time the court had heard from his estranged wife, Emma Roberts. And a fellow soldier revealed that he had feared for his life — not from the Taliban, but from Roberts-Smith himself.
The Victoria Cross winner has launched defamation proceedings against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times over a series of articles in 2018 that he says accuse him of being a war criminal and of also physically assaulting his then-mistress. He denies all wrongdoing; the media outlets are seeking to rely on a defence of truth.
On Thursday afternoon, Person 1, a serving special forces soldier, reported that Roberts-Smith had told him that if his performance did not improve he would “get a bullet in the back of the head”. Basically, in the middle of one of Australia’s deadliest military engagements since the Vietnam War, an Australian soldier gave evidence that he had had more to fear from a colleague than from his enemy.
Person 1 said that Roberts-Smith had bullied him.
“Not only did I have to worry about the Taliban but I also had to look over my own back at … people in my own squadron,” the soldier said.
The soldier was deployed to Afghanistan seven times and was part of Roberts-Smith’s patrol in 2006.
He said that Roberts-Smith had told him pre-deployment that “he didn’t think I had the required skills or ability to deploy to Afghanistan” and “he was going to do everything he could in his power to have me removed from his team and get one of his colleagues to replace me”.
Robert-Smith told Person 1 after a mission in Afghanistan’s Chora Pass in 2006 that “if your performance doesn’t improve on our next patrol, you’re going to get a bullet in the back of the head”.
“It made me fearful for my own personal safety,” he said. “It made me lose more confidence. It made me perform worse.”
After he reported this to one of his superiors, Roberts-Smith had approached him back at the base and said, “If you’re going to make accusations, c*nt, you’d better have some fucking proof”.
Person 1 acknowledged he had made mistakes on patrol, including forgetting oil for the machine gun, which had put the lives of the other soldiers on his patrol at risk.
But Roberts-Smith had bullied and threatened him for years, he said, causing “years of lost sleep and worry about my position, about my future, about my employment, about my chosen career”.
Earlier in the week, Emma Roberts took the stand. The couple married in 2003 and separated at the beginning of 2020, after which she dropped the “Smith” from her name. She had originally been scheduled to give evidence for her ex-husband but has changed sides. The 43-year-old mother of twin girls was a model witness, giving evidence in calm, measured tones.
She told the court that in 2018 her husband had threatened to take the children away from her if she didn’t lie and say that they had been separated at the time he had had an affair.
Roberts said that he indicated to their children, saying, “If you don’t lie, you will lose them”.
She also told the court that she discovered her husband was having an affair when his mistress, known to the court as Person 17, turned up at the couple’s Sunshine Coast home in April 2018 with a black eye and told Roberts and her parents that she had been pregnant with his child, but was now no longer pregnant.
“I asked her when they had last seen each other, and she said the night prior,” Roberts said.
Person 17 then showed them text messages between the two lovers.
Roberts said when she asked Person 17 to remove her sunglasses, she noticed that she had a black eye. When she asked the woman why she had stopped seeing Roberts-Smith, “she kept pointing to her black eye, saying ‘because of this’”.
When Roberts’ mother asked, “Are you saying that Ben did that to you?”, Person 17 didn’t answer, she related.
Roberts-Smith told the court last year that Person 17 was “extremely intoxicated” after a dinner in Canberra in March 2018 and had fallen down a flight of stairs.
Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Bruce McClintock SC, showed Roberts a text message she sent to a friend in January 2018 while they were on a family holiday to Singapore, in which she said, “How is he ever going to tell Kerry we are separated?”
She agreed this was a reference to Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes, the soldier’s mentor and employer. Asked what she was referring to in that message, Roberts said, “I don’t recall”.
She denied she had come to “loathe and detest” Roberts-Smith since their marriage broke down, but agreed she had been “very angry”.
She also denied that she was a witness in the proceedings to “pay out” Roberts-Smith or to “dump on him”.
“You were seeking revenge,” McClintock said.
“No, I was not,” she replied.
“You’d love to see my client lose this case, wouldn’t you?” the barrister insisted. “In fact, you’re here to inflict as much damage on him as you can.”
“No,” she replied. “I hope Ben survives this nightmare.”
The court heard that a friend texted her in November 2020 to say that Roberts should try to become financially self-sufficient over the next two to three years, and that it didn’t matter “what happens to him or what jail cell he rots in”.
McClintock said Roberts responded with “yes” and the “praying hands” emoji.
She said that referred to her desire to be financially independent, adding that she “absolutely would not” like to see Roberts-Smith rotting in a jail.
She agreed she had called her husband a “lying, cheating, c*nt human” and used the hashtag “#Titanic”. But she denied that she hated him at that time, saying she was “very frustrated in a very, very bitter divorce”.
Roberts agreed that the media outlets were covering the cost of her legal fees for appearing in the proceedings, estimating they were in the order of “tens of thousands” of dollars.
Person 1 is still in the witness stand this morning, being cross-examined by McClintock about an allegation that the soldier had spoken to other members of the patrol about making an official complaint about Roberts-Smith.
What had led to Person 1 breaking the soldiers’ code of silence to “dob in” a colleague? How did Roberts-Smith breach the trust of his fellow soldier, causing him to risk his own career to report him?
The hearing continues.
