His wife turned star witness against him, along with his former lover who claimed he punched her, while he accused her of blackmail and a fake pregnancy and their explosive texts after hotel sex trysts became trial exhibits.
War hero’s Ben Roberts-Smith’s $25 million defamation trial dragged his personal life through the mud in a way the 44-year-old Victoria Cross winner could never have predicted.
In the marathon lawsuit to clear his name of what he asserts are ‘corrosive’ lies about war crimes and domestic violence, the private life of Australia’s most decorated living soldier was laid bare.
As the country’s longest-running and most expensive defamation trial concludes on Thursday afternoon in the Federal Court of Australia, Mr Roberts-Smith may win his case against three newspapers and three journalists, but he’ll struggle to really fully regain his privacy.
The former elite SAS soldier had moved on before the trial with his new love, Sarah Matulin, a Brisbane marketing strategist he met while they both worked at Seven West Media.
But as the court hearings would be told, his ex-wife Emma Smith would reveal that she knew the soldier was cheating on her because he was constantly taking selfies which she knew were ‘not for her’.
Mr Roberts-Smith is hoping to can resume the life he claimed was destroyed by a defamatory campaign and then put on hold for the trial, as Seven’s Queensland CEO and a motivational speaker and anti-domestic violence campaigner.
Ben Roberts-Smith with his now ex-wife Emma, who testified against him as his marathon defamation action against Nine newspapers
Roberts-Smith with Brisbane marketing strategist Sarah Matulin who became a couple after they met at Seven where he was Queensland CEO before stepping aside for his lawsuit
Newspapers The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times did their best to expose Mr Roberts-Smith’s tempestuous romantic history during 110 days of evidence in trial hearings which ended a year ago.
During the trial, the Federal Court released reams of texts messages between Ben Roberts-Smith and his onetime mistress revealing the highs and lows of their relationship.
The woman, known as Person 17, would testify against him, as would his former wife, Emma Roberts.
In the messages, the two declared their love for each and discussed plans for the future, while Mr Roberts-Smith also admitted at the height of the affair that he was also still sleeping with his then wife.
‘We are going fine but because Em is trying so hard I feel like s*** and really nervous about hurting her,’ he wrote of Emma Roberts.
Ms Roberts would testify in the trial that she had suspected her then husband was having an affair during a difficult period in their marriage but the war hero repeatedly denied it.
Emma Roberts told the Federal Court that Mr Roberts-Smith had acquired a second mobile phone he was using to communicate with someone else but he would not admit being unfaithful.
‘He would constantly be taking selfies of himself and I knew they weren’t for me,’ she told the court
In text messages to Person 17 early in their relationship, Mr Roberts-Smith told her she was ‘amazing’ and ‘you make me feel like I never have before’.
In another, near the end of the their relationship he accused his mistress of attempting to blackmail him, which she denied.
Text message from Roberts-Smith to his mistress discussing his then wife, Emma, who he was still living with during his tempestuous affair with the woman known as Person 17
Emma Roberts arrives at court (above) to testify against her former husband after a bitter divorce following his infidelity with another woman
Between those message Mr Roberts-Smith revealed that a book on ‘201 techniques to pleasure your husband’ had been sent to his wife by an unknown person.
The texts formed part of the defamation action Mr Roberts-Smith had taken against Nine newspapers, which accused him of committing war crimes while serving in Afghanistan, which he denied.
The newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald, have also accused the former Special Air Service corporal of assaulting Person 17, which he also denied.
Mr Roberts-Smith, who said he separated from his wife in late September 2017, was in a relationship with Person 17 from October that year until April 2018. He had kept the affair secret for some months.
On January 9, 2018, Mr Roberts-Smith referred to a letter about his affair that had previously been sent to his home.
‘I just got another parcel like the letter but addressed to Emma,’ he wrote to Person 17. ‘It was a book call 201 techniques to pleasure your husband… sent the same way as the last one.’
Ben Roberts-Smith goes jogging in Sydney during the long-running trial after he sued three newspapers for claiming he was a war criminal and also a domestic violence abuser
Person 17 responded: ‘Jesus! Did she see it? That’s creepy & really weird. [Person 17’s husband] wouldn’t do that.’
Mr Roberts-Smith: ‘I hope not, it’s someone else having a go at me… but directly targeting my family which is nasty and I think I know who it is.’
The text messages were released as exhibits to media outlets covering the trial.
On March 2, Person 17 texted Mr Roberts-Smith, saying: ‘I don’t suddenly stop loving you just because we aren’t going to be together.
‘I need to feel like I did when you first broke your decision to me in London – that you have really strong feelings for me (love me) & wish you could be with me if life was different but you just can’t etc etc.
‘Otherwise what I am to you other than a good time? Which makes me feel like s**t.’
Text exchanges between Person 17 and Roberts-Smith in which he told her how a sex techniques book mysteriously turned up in the mail addressed to his ten wife, Emma
Mr Roberts-Smith replied: ‘But that is how I feel and I’ve told you that. I wish we had of met under different circumstances.
‘Unfortunately we didn’t and that’s why I don’t want to keep revisiting this because then we run the risk of destroying that memory. I don’t want us to become resentful of each other.’
The former soldier testified that he permanently split with Person 17 on April 5, 2018, after a last night together in Brisbane’s Airport Novotel Hotel.
He denied telling Person 17 that evening: ‘You’re like crack and I’m going to find it very hard to give you up.’
He also denied saying, ‘As long as we’re on the same page, all I will ever do is protect you. If you don’t do anything stupid, you will be fine. But I will burn your house down if you turn on me and it might not be you that gets hurt but people that you love.’
The next day Person 17 went to Mr Roberts-Smith’s home and told his wife details of the affair over a couple of hours. She got his address by looking at his driver’s licence while he was in the shower.
Mr Roberts-Smith texted Person 17 later that day, stating ‘What have you done? This is outright blackmail’.
He denied that was the first time his wife knew of the relationship, and told the court: ‘She was trying to do as much damage as she could in any way, shape or form’.
Person 17 had responded to the blackmail allegation by writing, ‘No. It most certainly is not blackmail. I’m not asking anything for or expecting anything from you.
Private investigator John McLeod (above, outside the trial) testified that Roberts-Smith had hired him to video the soldier’s mistress attending a Brisbane abortion clinic even though she later admitted she was not pregnant
‘Please don’t waste your time with intimidation or payback either.’
Person 17 referred to ‘seeing what you were capable of a few weeks back’ and warned she had ‘insurance’ in place in the event anything happened to her.
‘I know you will blame me but I hope you’ll also remember that we’re in this position because of what we’ve BOTH done.’
On the stand, Mr Roberts-Smith denied demanding Person 17 video herself taking a pregnancy test after she told him she was going to have their child.
Nicholas Owens SC for Nine put it to him that after Person 17 told him she was pregnant in February 2018 he demanded she prove she was going to have their child.
Mr Roberts-Smith said he doubted Person 17 was pregnant but he had never insisted on proof by demanding she video herself taking a test.
‘I’d just tried to end the relationship and she said she was pregnant,’ he told the court. ‘I was just sceptical of it.
‘I just didn’t like the timing. It didn’t make sense to me. I believed I was being manipulated for a number of reasons.’
Text messages between Ben Roberts-Smith and Person 17 included an exchange in which he accused her of blackmail, which she denied
Mr Roberts-Smith said Person 17 had sent him an image of a positive pregnancy test but that had not proved anything to him.
‘They’re very easy to fake, pregnancy tests, and I had no idea whether she was or wasn’t,’ he told the court.
He hired a private investigator to follow his mistress to hospital after she told him she was going to abort the child.
Roberts-Smith said he confronted Person 17 and she said she had undergone an abortion in Townsville, then that she had miscarried.
She later admitted she had made up the abortion story because she did not want him to leave her.
He asked private investigator John McLeod to film her attending a Brisbane abortion clinic.
Mr McLeod, a former bodyguard to drug smuggler Schapelle Corby, produced a video taken at the hospital that convinced Mr Roberts-Smith that Person 17 had not had an abortion.
‘She walked out the front and was able to pick up her own bag, looked normal as if she had just stepped out of her workplace or off a plane. Was dressed nicely, no issues at all,’ Mr McLeod’s report said.’
Sarah Matulin and Ben Roberts-Smith in June 2021 as the marathon defamation trial began, eventually lasting for 110 days with significant delays because of the Covid pandemic
‘It became evident that she certainly had not had a procedure that day,’ Mr Roberts-Smith told the court.
He also denied having assaulted Person 17 at Canberra’s Realm Hotel after a March 2018 function at Parliament House.
The court heard Person 17 became so intoxicated at the function she fell down a set of stairs leading to an underground car park and suffered serious injuries to her face.
‘I have never hit a woman,’ he said. ‘I would never hit a woman. And I have never hit Person 17.’
He said the allegation of a domestic violence assault was what haunted him most when he appeared in public following the newspapers’ series of articles about him.
‘That particular allegation, I feel, combined with being called a war criminal, has ruined my life,’ he said.
‘For a long time I found it very difficult to leave the house after that.’
He denied ever hitting Person 17 and said domestic violence was ‘deplorable’ and ‘a disgusting act of of cowardice’.
‘I have no tolerance for anyone who would ever raise their hand against a woman,’ he told the court.
Bruce McClintock, SC, for Mr Roberts-Smith said Nine was falsely alleging the former soldier had punched Person 17 in exactly the same place where she had been injured in the fall.
Nicholas Owens SC, for Nine, told the court that the day after the Parliament House incident Mr Roberts-Smith and Person 17 exchanged text messages about what had occurred.
Ben Roberts-Smith (above on Anzac Day 2023 with his partner Sarah Matulin) hopes to win his defamation action and resume his life as a media executive and motivational speaker
She had written: ‘I feel awful. I made a doctor’s appointment for this afternoon after speaking to [her husband] and sent him a photo.’
Mr Roberts-Smith allegedly replied: ‘Does he think I did it?’
Person 17: ‘Yeah, he did to begin with and he didn’t believe I had fallen down stairs. I just told him what we talked about.’
She had also said: ‘I’ve got some other bruises including a massive one on my thigh on the same side of my body which will hopefully make the falling story more believable.’
Mr Roberts-Smith allegedly replied: ‘OK well hopefully he believes you.’
Mr Roberts-Smith said the night of the Parliament House fall spelt the end of his relationship with Person 17, who had apologised for her conduct.
‘It effectively was the final straw,’ he said.
Mr McClintock said within a week of Person 17 sustaining the injuries she went to the Roberts-Smith matrimonial home and told his then wife she had been having an affair with her husband.
Ms Roberts and her mother asked about Person 17’s facial injuries and she said she had fallen down stairs, Mr McClintock told the court.
Ben Roberts-Smith (above in Afghanistan) hopes to prove newspaper articles accusing him of war crimes are lies and that his reputation has been unfairly tarnished
Person 17 said the same thing to a doctor and a complaint she later made to police was eventually withdrawn.
Mr Roberts-Smith did not tell his wife about the relationship with Person 17, until they travelled to Singapore with their two children in January 2018, to see if they could work through issues which had plagued their marriage since 2015.
‘The problem, from my perspective, was that I had not told my wife that I had started a relationship with Person 17,’ he told the court. ‘She did not know that and nor did I think that I was entitled to have a relationship with Person 17.
‘In the interests of trying to move forward and have any hope of successfully maintaining our relationship, I decided I needed to tell her.’
The couple’s separation continued after that trip but the pair felt they wanted to keep trying to make their marriage work.
‘It certainly wasn’t the end of our relationship,’ Mr Roberts-Smith told the court.
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