Ben Roberts-Smith defamation trial: woman who war veteran had affair with to give evidence

The trial has spent weeks focused on Australian SAS missions in Afghanistan, with a series of former comrades giving evidence about actions on operation, but it will shift its focus to Australia as the woman, anonymised in court documents as Person 17, enters the witness box.

The newspapers are pleading a defence of truth. Roberts-Smith denies all wrongdoing.

The newspapers allege Roberts-Smith was violent towards Person 17 on one occasion, punching her in the face after a function at Parliament House in March 2018, allegedly because he was worried her behaviour had revealed their affair.

The court heard that after the relationship broke down in the days after the function, Person 17 arrived unannounced at the Roberts-Smith family home in Queensland, and confronted his then wife, Emma.

Emma Roberts, in her evidence to this trial, said Person 17 had a black eye on that day, which she said had been caused by a drunken fall.

On Monday a former comrade of Roberts-Smith, a still-serving member of the SAS known before the court as Person 7, spent his fourth days in the witness box detailing his service alongside, and relationship with, the VC winner.

There was forensic focus in court on the wording of the citation: whether an insurgent killed in the firefight was armed; on the intensity of the gunfire during the 13-hour battle; about a grenade thrown by Roberts-Smith which did not detonate; and whether an enemy position captured by Roberts-Smith was fortified and elevated.

Person 7 remains in the witness box. The trial, before Justice Anthony Besanko, continues.