‘Corrosive jealousy and lies’ behind Ben Roberts-Smith war crime claims, court told - Sydney Morning Herald

Former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith’s reputation was destroyed by a campaign fuelled by bitter and jealous soldiers who made allegations of war crimes to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, his barrister has alleged on the first day of his high-stakes defamation trial.

Sydney defamation barrister Bruce McClintock, SC, acting for Mr Roberts-Smith, told the Federal Court on Monday that the case was about “courage, devotion to duty [and] self-sacrifice”, on the one hand, and “dishonest journalism, corrosive jealousy and lies”, on the other.

Ben Roberts-Smith walking into Federal Court for his trial.Credit:Edwina Pickles

Mr McClintock said Mr Roberts-Smith’s reputation had been destroyed by a campaign led by “bitter people” in the Special Air Services who were “aided by credulous journalists”.

He alleged “a number of soldiers had developed enormous jealousy towards my client”, and “some might call it tall poppy syndrome; others might call it jealousy”. Some soldiers might have “false memories because of the trauma”, Mr McClintock added.

Mr Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient, launched the defamation lawsuit in 2018 over reports that he says accused him of murder during his 2009 to 2012 tour of Afghanistan. As well as the two media outlets now owned by Nine, he is also suing three journalists and The Canberra Times, now under separate ownership, over an allegation that he committed an act of domestic violence against a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair.

Mr Roberts-Smith denies all wrongdoing.

Barrister Bruce McClintock, SC, outside the Federal Court on Monday.Credit:Edwina Pickles

The media outlets are relying chiefly on a defence of truth. The trial is expected to run for up to 10 weeks.

In a lengthy opening address that is expected to continue into Tuesday, Mr McClintock quoted former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who is said to have remarked: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

He said Mr Roberts-Smith was an exceptional soldier; competent in battle and effective in killing. Some in the community might “blush” at the characterisation of killing as a virtue, he said, but, if so, their quarrel was with the government who sent young people to war.

Battle, he said, was not like a “computer war-game” where soldiers got their lives back at the end of the game.

Mr Roberts-Smith killed many insurgents, he said, as did other Australian soldiers.

“War is violent,” Mr McClintock said, and “the simple fact is that some who have reported on matters concerning my client have forgotten that fact ... in their rush to tear him down.”

He said the soldiers had “no way of knowing” whether a person was an insurgent or an ordinary villager in Afghanistan because “they didn’t wear uniforms; they didn’t carry a sign saying ‘insurgent’.”

The trial is expected to hear about the killing of a suspected Afghan militant with a prosthetic leg in April 2009. The leg was allegedly used as a beer drinking vessel at the SAS base in Afghanistan.

Mr McClintock told the court last year that Mr Roberts-Smith “never drank from that thing … because he thought it was disgusting to souvenir a body part, albeit an artificial one from someone who had been killed in action.”

On Monday he changed his language while insisting the leg was “not a trophy” and his client did not drink from it.

Drinking from a prosthetic leg might appear to be in “bad taste”, he said, but allowances must be made “in the scheme of human wickedness” for men who had engaged in the extremity of armed combat who needed to decompress.

Mr McClintock said that “regrettably” lost limbs and prosthetic limbs were not unknown in Afghanistan and one Taliban fighter reportedly hid explosives in a prosthetic limb.

In late May the media outlets withdrew one element of their truth defence, related to the alleged killing of an unarmed Afghan. They had initially described the killing as murder. The newspapers are still seeking to prove that Mr Roberts-Smith killed that unarmed man, and committed six murders.

Mr McClintock said it was “absolutely outrageous” to withdraw the murder allegation with “no apology”, and it justified an award of aggravated damages above the usual compensatory damages.

The hearing continues.

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2021-06-07 01:48:37Z
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