The ex-Defence whistleblower at the centre of ABC raids

He is a one-time Liberal candidate in NSW and the son of the late Sydney doctor who alerted the world to birth defects caused by the drug thalidomide.

Now David William McBride, a former military lawyer and captain in Britain's elite Special Air Service, is himself a whistleblower and is at the centre of Australian Federal Police raids on the ABC's Sydney headquarters on Wednesday.

Whistleblower David William McBride has been charged for leaking defence documents to journalists.Credit: Alexandra Back

Mr McBride, 55, was arrested in dramatic scenes at Sydney Airport in September last year as he sought to return to his new home of Spain after a brief trip to Australia to attend a father-daughter dance at his daughter's school.

He was named on Wednesday alongside three ABC journalists in the AFP's search warrant, which covers a raft of documents believed to be in the possession of the national broadcaster, including handwritten and digital notes relating to the four men as well as to a range of organisations and broad topics, including "Afghanistan" and "The 7.30 Report".

A former legal adviser to Australia's special forces in Afghanistan, Mr McBride does not dispute that he leaked material to the ABC that formed the basis of a 2017 report called "The Afghan files", which revealed allegations of serious misconduct by Australian troops in Afghanistan including potential unlawful killings of unarmed men and children.

Mr McBride was charged in September last year with theft of Commonwealth property, namely war crimes investigation files, and three counts of breaching the Defence Act. He was also charged under old secrecy provisions in the Commonwealth Crimes Act.

Mr McBride, who said in March he is "not afraid of going to jail", has been committed to stand trial on the charges in the ACT Supreme Court. He is currently on bail and if found guilty, he faces a potential lengthy prison term or fine.

“They’ve threatened me all along with going to jail. If I was afraid of going to jail, why would I have been a soldier?” he told reporters earlier this year.

“Unfortunately there are too many people in Canberra who are afraid. Plenty of people knew what I knew, but no one else stood up.”

He said outside court in March he would defend the case on legal grounds, namely that he had a duty to report the information at the heart of the leaks.

“I’m seeking to have the case look purely at whether the government broke the law and whether it was my duty as a lawyer to report that fact,” he said. “I’m taking away, off the table, any dispute about whether the documents were given.”

In 2002 Mr McBride won a tough preselection battle to run as the Liberal Party's candidate in the NSW seat of Coogee, then a Labor stronghold held by veteran MP Ernie Page. It followed a brief flirtation with the ALP in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Joining Mr McBride on the campaign trail was his father William McBride, the Sydney doctor who was celebrated for alerting the world to the dangers of thalidomide.

Dr McBride, who died last year, was struck off the medical register in the early 1990s after concerns were raised about his research into another drug he suspected caused birth defects. He won the right to practice again in 1998.

Mr McBride lost the 2003 state election to the ALP's Mr Page and Coogee would not be reclaimed by the Liberals until 2011. The seat returned to ALP hands at the March 23 election this year.

In a varied career, the Oxford and University of Sydney alumnus also worked at a London-based security company and, years before his pursuit by the AFP, appeared in the British adventure game-show Wanted in the 1990s. His Supreme Court case is listed for a preliminary hearing on June 13.

Mr McBride told The Canberra Times there was no connection between him and the AFP's raid on Tuesday of the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.