The disgraced former SAS soldier could be back in Australia as soon as Wednesday night.
He was not in court for the release of the judgment, which found the media outlets had proven the truth of allegations he was involved in war crimes, murder and bullying. Roberts-Smith had attended every day of the 110-day trial.
Roberts-Smith was thought to be headed to his home town of Brisbane but had yet to be sighted in Australia on Wednesday evening. Justice Anthony Besanko found in his judgment that Person 35 had talked to other witnesses supporting Roberts-Smith in detail before testifying. Justice Besanko also noted it was unusual that Channel Seven had paid the legal costs of Person 35 and other witnesses.
The CDPP concluded in March that the five-year AFP probe should not lead to a prosecution because of the risk it was unwittingly compromised by the receipt of certain information from the Brereton inquiry, a military inspector-general probe that ran from 2016 to 2020 and used special coercive powers to question SAS soldiers.
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