What the judge decided in the Ben Roberts-Smith case

The judge found the former soldier was a war criminal, murderer and bully on Thursday in one of the biggest defamation trials ever in Australia.

Hannah WoottonColumnist

Updated Jun 1, 2023 – 4.14pm, first published at 12.49pm

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After 110 days in court, 41 witnesses and an estimated $25 million in legal fees, Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko found The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times proved Ben Roberts-Smith was a war criminal, murderer and bully on Thursday in one of the biggest defamation trials ever in Australia.

The Victoria Cross winner had claimed that a series of articles published by the newspapers wrongly accused him of war crimes in Afghanistan and domestic violence at home.

Hannah Wootton is a Rear Window columnist, based in Melbourne.