After 110 days, 41 witnesses and an estimated $25 million in legal costs, public hearings in Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation case have concluded. | MWhitbourn
concluded on Wednesday after 110 days, 41 witnesses and more than $25 million in legal costs.Justice Anthony Besanko reserved his decision and will deliver a written judgment at a later date.
Arthur Moses, SC, acting for Roberts-Smith, urged the court to reject the newspapers’ truth defence, telling the court that allegations of war crimes levelled against his client had their genesis in the “corrosive jealousy” of a handful of his former Special Air Service comrades. The media outlets’ case was based on “mere suspicion, surmise and guesswork”, he said.
Moses said a “war of words” had erupted between Roberts-Smith, a former SAS corporal, and some of his former comrades after he was awarded the Victoria Cross, Australia’s highest military honour, in 2011 for his actions in a 2010 battle in Tizak, Afghanistan. Moses rejected an allegation, made by the newspapers in court, that Roberts-Smith and four of his witnesses had colluded to give false testimony about one alleged incident, and said the evidence demonstrated a “clear absence of collusion”.Roberts-Smith launched defamation proceedings against the media outlets in August 2018 over a series of seven articles published that year.
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