Despite facing allegations of war crime murders, it was one very different accusation which broke towering SAS hero Ben Roberts-Smith in court.

Across 110 days of evidence in the year-long Federal Court defamation trial, this single accusation stood out - and for reasons entirely unrelated to Afghanistan. 

As much as he is hounded over the allegations about his military past, he is also haunted by his tortured love life, which saw his wife and mistress testify against him.

The trigger for his courtroom meltdown in June 2021 was the 'deplorable' allegation that he had punched his one-time mistress in the face.

Barrister Bruce McClintock SC asked his client, the Victoria Cross-awarded former SAS corporal, how he thought the public viewed him now.

'That's the problem,' Mr Roberts-Smith said, as he broke down in visible distress. 

'I don't know. I used to...

'Now I walk down the street, people will look at me. The first thing I think of is that they think I hit a woman.'

Ultimately, a judge found the alleged war crimes to be substantially true on the balance of probabilities, the lower evidentiary standard in civil court 

Those allegations have resurfaced as criminal charges against the 47-year-old, which must now be proven beyond reasonable doubt in the NSW Supreme Court. 

Justice Anthony Besanko did not find Nine Newspapers (then Fairfax) substantiated the alleged 2018 domestic violence claim, but ruled it had 'contextual truth'.

‘Contextual truth’ essentially means that if the true parts already make the person look bad, then the extra unproven parts do not matter. 

Throughout it all, as the allegations were aired in court - and his wife and former mistress testified against him - Roberts-Smith's current girlfriend and his mother stood by him and spoke out in his defence.

Like as the Australian public has been bitterly divided by the allegations against the 202cm-tall former soldier, so too are the women in his life. 

Nowhere was the bitterness better revealed than the WhatsApp messages aired in court between ex-wife Emma Roberts and her best friend, Danielle Scott-Flanders.

In some, she used expletives to describe him, expressing a desire to 'punch the f***ing c*** in the face'. In another, she called her ex 'a dumb lying c***'.

HIS EX-WIFE: EMMA ROBERTS

Their break-up was bitter, but it had started as an ideal love match.

Roberts-Smith was 19, the son of Western Australian Supreme Court judge, Army Reserve major general and Australian Defence Force judge advocate general Len Roberts-Smith and his wife Sue.

Emma Groom came from a military family, and they met at an army ball in 1998. After basic training, Roberts-Smith had been posted to the 3RAR at Holsworthy in NSW.

Early in their romance, he was deployed to Malaysia and East Timor, moving back to WA to complete the SAS selection course in 2003, the same year they were married.

Roberts-Smith was deployed as an SAS corporal to Afghanistan on six occasions, in 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 - the year Emma gave birth to their twin daughters, and Roberts-Smith earned his Victoria Cross in the Battle of Tizak. His last deployment was in 2012.  

In 2013, he was named Australian Father of the Year. He retired from the army in 2015, and the family moved to Queensland. 

By 2017, Roberts-Smith was having an affair with a woman known in court only as Person 17, after telling her he had left his wife, but that wasn't true.

Emma Roberts only found out about her husband's affair when Person 17 arrived in tears at her home in April 2018 and showed her hundreds of text messages on her phone.

The divorce was finalised in December 2020 and in 2022, Ms Roberts testified for the defence against her husband.

Ms Roberts told the court that the woman said she had become pregnant during the relationship and the baby was 'definitely Ben's', but she had lost the child.

Ms Roberts said when Person 17 was at their home, she was initially wearing large sunglasses covering a black eye, and had told her that she had fallen down stairs at Parliament House while drunk.

She told the court she asked Person 17 why she was not going to see Mr Roberts-Smith any more.

'She pointed to her black eye and said 'because of this',' but when pressed on whether she was claiming Roberts-Smith had hit her, she said nothing.

Under cross-examination, Ms Roberts denied she came to 'loathe and detest' her ex-husband by 2020.

She said the expletives she used to describe him, and texting her friend Danielle that  his voice made 'my skin crawl' were 'derogatory references' and that she had been 'very angry', but denied she 'loathed' him.

HIS EX-WIFE'S BEST FRIEND: DANIELLE SCOTT-FLANDERS

Danielle Scott-Flanders was Emma Roberts' lifelong best friend, and she and her husband Darren Pill were clearly friendly with Roberts-Smith when his marriage was still intact.

When that marriage broke down, Danielle remained loyal to Emma, and allegations about her support for her friend later became part of the Federal Court proceedings.

The court heard Telstra records showed Ms Scott and Mr Pill were the users of a BigPond email account Roberts-Smith alleged had been used to access his emails.

He argued Ms Roberts had accessed his private information by hacking into his emails through that account, or had Ms Scott do so on her behalf.

That case also failed, and Roberts-Smith was later ordered to pay his ex-wife's costs, while Danielle Scott's name also surfaced in evidence about material allegedly buried in the Roberts-Smiths' backyard.

The ex-soldier told the court he had received USBs from an unknown person over several months, viewed them, and then placed them in a Tupperware container in his desk.

The USBs contained images of soldiers drinking in the SAS troop bar in Afghanistan, known as the Fat Lady's Arms, and images relating to the Taliban operation Whisky 108.

He was accused of burying the container in his backyard after leaving his wife, but said his ex-wife and her school friend had access to the Tupperware container.

The suggestion was that the contents could have been passed to the media, where photographs later emerged of a man drinking from a prosthetic leg at the Fat Lady's Arms, with Roberts-Smith in the background.

That leg was central to the defamation trial because it had belonged to one of the men allegedly shot dead by Roberts-Smith, one of the war crimes allegations he now faces.

HIS EX-MISTRESS: 'PERSON 17'

The affair with the woman known as Person 17 began in October 2017 after the pair met at a charity event.

Roberts-Smith admitted they later stayed together in hotels on weekends in Cairns, Sydney, Mackay, Townsville, Canberra and several times in Brisbane, on 15 occasions up to April 2018.

That was when a tearful Person 17 turned up at his marital home and revealed the affair.

The newspapers claimed Roberts-Smith assaulted Person 17 on the evening the affair ended, after an event in Canberra attended by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Roberts-Smith repeatedly denied all allegations that he assaulted, abused or threatened her.

He was also accused of taking her to an IGA and forcing her to take a pregnancy test in front of him after she said she was pregnant.

That accusation followed claims the pair had been planning a future together, with him promising to run away with her to the United States and buy her a pink Argyle diamond ring.

Media lawyer Nicholas Owens SC put it to Roberts-Smith that he had threatened to burn down Person 17's house on the night they broke up, which he denied.

On March 28, 2018, they were staying at Canberra's Hotel Realm and attending a reception at Parliament House's Great Hall in the soldier's honour.

Person 17 had drunk a bottle of wine and taken Valium, and while seated at a different table from her secret lover, had disclosed the affair to the senior naval officer beside her, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs.

The pair left the Great Hall, with Person 17 carrying a glass of wine, after Roberts-Smith went to speak to the driver of the Comcar waiting to take them back to the hotel.

She fell down the stairs, an incident she did not deny during three days of testimony at the defamation trial.

Roberts-Smith found federal police officers holding her up, after she had sustained what he described as 'a significant bump on the top of her left eye'.

He said she was intoxicated and incoherent, and had lain down in the back of the Comcar.

Their accounts of what happened back at the hotel differ sharply.

Roberts-Smith said he did not sleep and stayed awake to monitor her breathing and pulse, which he said was consistent with care for any head injury.

Person 17 told the court that when she complained of a sore head from the fall, he punched her.

That account of assault was a lie from a woman bent on revenge, Mr McClintock argued in cross-examination.

She agreed she had sought one more night alone with him in a different hotel a week later, on April 5, but said it was because she was 'simultaneously in love with him and afraid of him.'

She did not make a police complaint, and Roberts-Smith has not been charged with assault.

HIS GIRLFRIEND: SARAH MATULIN

In 2021, as the then 42-year-old Roberts-Smith prepared for his defamation action against Nine Newspapers, he was publicly photographed with Sarah Matulin.

The couple announced their relationship in January that year by attending the Magic Millions horse race together on the Gold Coast.

They met when Ms Matulin was working at Channel 7 in Queensland and Roberts-Smith was its general manager.

She left the station in late 2020 and joined Gold Coast PR firm Ruby Communications, later becoming marketing and media manager for the Gold Coast Bullets basketball team.

Roberts-Smith, who had worked for Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media since 2015, stepped down while the defamation trial was running and resigned in mid-2023 after losing the case.

The couple was photographed exercising together on weekends during the trial, although she did not attend the hearings.

Roberts-Smith, who lives in a luxury apartment on the Brisbane River, had flown with Ms Matulin and his teenage twin daughters on a Qantas flight from Brisbane at the start of the school holidays when he was arrested on arrival at Sydney Airport.

Roberts-Smith was removed from the plane in Sydney by Australian Federal Police officers, escorted to Mascot Police Station, charged, and then taken by prison van to Silverwater Correctional Complex’s Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre. 

HIS MOTHER: SUE ROBERTS-SMITH

Len and Sue Roberts-Smith have two sons, including Sam, who is an opera singer.

In 2021, they temporarily moved from Western Australia’s lockdown to Sydney and rented an apartment to support their elder son as he fought to restore his reputation in the Federal Court.

'We are very proud of him for the father and son that he is,' they said in a public statement before the trial. 

'We love and care for him like every parent loves and cares for their child.' 

They said they had never expected their son would be unfairly attacked after serving in Afghanistan with distinction, and that the war crimes allegations had destroyed his life and affected them every day for years.

When he launched an appeal in the High Court last March, after Judge Besanko’s rulings and another failed attempt, his parents were again present in support.

Roberts-Smith’s appeal argument was that there had been a miscarriage of justice because journalist Nick McKenzie had allegedly unlawfully obtained details of his legal strategy.

In leaked audio referring to that strategy during a conversation with Person 17, McKenzie said Emma Roberts and Danielle Scott had been actively briefing him on Roberts-Smith’s legal strategy.

McKenzie also said: 'I’ve just breached my f***ing ethics in doing that.'

Outside court, Mr and Mrs Roberts-Smith said the conversation was extremely concerning and questioned whether McKenzie’s conduct caused an unfair trial.

They repeated their support for their son and said he had been subjected to vilification by McKenzie and Nine for almost a decade.

Last September, the High Court ruled it would not grant Roberts-Smith leave to appeal.

Two weeks later, Sue Roberts-Smith sent a 39-page dossier to two dozen Liberal and National MPs after speculation about Andrew Hastie’s possible succession.

She wrote that Hastie, a former SAS captain who served alongside Roberts-Smith in Afghanistan and gave evidence in the defamation trial, was not fit to lead the Liberal Party.

In his 2021 evidence, Hastie said it was a fairly well-established rumour that Roberts-Smith had kicked an unarmed PUC - person under control - off a cliff in Afghanistan.

He also said there was a widespread view within the SAS that Roberts-Smith was a bully, and that he was no longer proud of a soldier he once held in high regard.

Sue Roberts-Smith’s dossier included news stories and links about Hastie, including his views on China and his decision to abstain from the same-sex marriage vote.

'You should be alarmed at the attachments to this email,' she wrote.

'The word document has only a fraction of what harm Andrew Hastie has done to the Liberal Party and to others including our family.'

This week Hastie revealed he could again be called upon to testify against Roberts-Smith at his criminal trial and released a statement addressing his position.

'In 2022, I was one of 21 SAS veterans of the war in Afghanistan subpoenaed as a witness in the defamation action brought by Ben Roberts-Smith against Nine Media,' he wrote on Thursday.

'As a qualified member of the SAS, I was present on one of the operational missions in 2012 that was examined by the Federal Court.

'I gave testimony under oath, as required by law.

'Mr Roberts-Smith is now facing criminal charges in relation to this operational mission, so it is possible that I will be called as a witness to this trial.

'I urge every Australian to respect the rule of law, the criminal justice system, and the accused’s right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial.

'Therefore, I will not prejudice this trial by making any further comment.'