There has been a “concerted effort” by Roberts-Smith and some of his witnesses to give “false evidence” about an alleged incident at the centre of the defamation case, the war veteran’s defamation case has been told. | MWhitbourn
said the incident in question was that Person 12 had shot at a dog and unintentionally injured a soldier.
Owens alleged Roberts-Smith’s claims about Person 12 were “a deliberate lie ... which evidences a consciousness of guilt”. He submitted that Person 12 was present on the day in question “beyond a shadow of a doubt”, and the evidence of Person 14 was honest and accurate.The “dog-shooting story” was “calculated to undermine the evidence” of Person 14, Owens said, and “remove Person 12 from the ... mission”.
He suggested Roberts-Smith was “afraid” that admitting Person 12 was there would make his guilt more probable, and there was “ample evidence” that it was a lie to claim the Afghan soldier was not there. Owens said on Wednesday that Person 16’s evidence ought to be believed. It was not a plausible explanation to assert Person 16 had imagined the incident, he said.Bruce McClintock, SC, one of Mr Roberts-Smith’s barristers, dismissed the allegation in his opening address to the court and described the alleged boast as “the sort of thing that would be said by an ostentatious psychopath”. But Owens said the question wasn’t whether the alleged comment was “lurid”, but whether it was said.
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