Ben Roberts-Smith: how the soldier’s newspaper defamation suit went from battlefield to backyard

At the end of two torrid days in the witness box, the questions came relentlessly, rapidly at Emma Roberts.

Asked to recount the moments and months when her marriage to decorated war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith slowly eroded, and then, suddenly, fell apart, she remained composed.

She told the court calmly of her growing suspicions her husband was having an affair, of the secret phone that would occasionally buzz in their bedroom, of his absences, his burying of secret items in the backyard. And finally, she detailed the arrival on her doorstep of the woman her husband had promised did not exist.

Roberts, however stoic, was a reluctant witness, appearing for the newspapers her ex-husband is suing for defamation under force of a subpoena.

Roberts-Smith's lawyer, Bruce McClintock SC, however, put it to Roberts time and time again during cross-examination that she had taken the stand in order to destroy her ex-husband and the reputation he had earned. It was put to her that her testimony about her ex-husband's affair was untrue; that nothing was ever buried in her backyard, as her ex-husband has told the court; that she "was quite prepared to lie" to discredit the man sitting impassively in the far corner of the courtroom.

Over and over it was asserted she was lying to harm Roberts-Smith.

"I bet you're here to inflict as much damage upon him as you can," McClintock said.