Court hears of the tangled love life of Ben Roberts-Smith

The love life of Ben Roberts-Smith has been on display in his defamation case with Nine newspapers — sparked by “devastating” allegations he struck his lover in the face.

One of the most “devastating” allegations that prompted Ben Roberts-Smith to sue Nine newspapers for defamation was that he had struck his lover in the face.

“l have no tolerance for anyone who would raise a hand against a woman. I find it a disgusting act of cowardice,” he told the Federal Court at the start of his marathon hearing.

Mr Roberts-Smith is now divorced from his wife Emma and has moved on to a new relationship with PR woman Sarah Matulin who he met when they both worked at Channel 7. She has been constant support for him during the trial in Sydney.

But his former lover, identified only as Person 17, claimed in court that Mr Roberts-Smith had struck her in almost the same spot where she had hit her head after drunkenly falling down the stairs at an official function in Parliament House in Canberra in 2018.

A former soldier and defence industry executive, Terry Nichols, said he helped Person 17 down the stairs from the function when she fell and landed with a “terrible thud”.

Emma Roberts-Smith, the ex wife of SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, leaving the Federal Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

He rushed down to help her and found she had a “very large haematoma on the left side of her forehead above her eye, which I gather was as a direct result of landing head first on either the bottom of the stairs or the landing itself”. That lump was not there before the fall, he said.

Person 17 told the hearing she blamed Mr Roberts-Smith.

“I had a sore front of my left side of my forehead,” she said after falling down the stairs and being assisted by a police officer.

“He hit me in the left temple and eye, but on that same side of my face.”

Mr Roberts-Smith denied ever hitting her and said he sat up with her all night to care for her. Person 17 said she made a doctor’s appointment in Queensland the next day and said the “first thing” the doctor asked was “has someone hit you?”

“No, I fell over when I was drunk,” she told him.

Ben Roberts-Smith with then-wife Emma Roberts-Smith. Person 17 claims she was blackmailed into revealing her affair with the soldier to his wife.

She claimed in court that a man approached her on the beach with photographs of her Mr Roberts-Smith having sex in a hotel room – even though they had only ever stayed above the 20th floor and the hotel was not overlooked – and was told to reveal the affair to his wife.

Person 17 then went to Mr Roberts-Smith’s home on the Sunshine Coast to tell his wife Emma they had been having an affair.

“What happened to your face?” Ms Roberts, who was at the home with her parents, asked.

“I fell down the stairs last week when I was drunk,” she said.

“I didn’t want to tell them anything more than that, because I just knew that I would be then targeted by him,” she explained to Nine’s barrister Nicholas Owens SC. “I was simultaneously in love with him and afraid of him.”

Roberts-Smith is suing media company Nine for defamation. He denies Person 17’s accusation he hit her. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

In fact, Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister Bruce McClintock SC said she did not raise the allegation that she had been struck until after she spoke to Nine journalist Nick McKenzie.

“She didn’t mention any allegation to anyone until she spoke to Mr McKenzie three months later,” he said.

“It was Mr McKenzie who reported this and allegations of war crimes to his contacts in the Australian Federal Police counter terrorism organisation.”

Mr McClintock said the woman withdrew the complaint and police dropped the investigation due to insufficient evidence.

The court heard Person 17 also claimed she was pregnant and faked an abortion in what the SAS veteran’s barrister called “a campaign of deceit”.

Sarah Matulin and Ben Roberts-Smith are now in a relationship after Mr Roberts-Smith’s divorce. Picture: Luke Marsden

Ms Roberts told the court Person 17’s arrival on her doorstep plunged her life into “complete chaos … my life had just imploded,” she said.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he did not begin seeing Person 17 until after the marriage had ended. Despite a sworn statement that she had found out about the mistress months before Person 17 arrived at the home, Ms Roberts told the court that was the first she knew of the affair.

Ms Roberts confronted her husband, the father of their twin daughters, with what Person 17 had told her and the text messages she had been shown.

Emma Roberts-Smith told the court she hopes her ex-husband “survives this nightmare”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

“We stayed up until midnight,” Ms Roberts said, “He told me about their relationship.”

“I had made the decision to stay with Ben and try to work on our marriage,” she told the court.

But she claimed to have become suspicious about the amount of time the Victoria Cross recipient was spending in the garden. She and friend Danielle Scott went out and dug up a lunch box containing USBs with photographs from his tours in Afghanistan.

She denied that she had told Nine journalists about the burial which was the subject of a Sixty Minutes report. Mr Roberts-Smith lost his appeal in a separate case that would have allowed him to grill her over allegations that she or her best friend Ms Scott had accessed his private emails and leaked them to Nine journalists.

Mr McClintock told her that Mr Roberts-Smith was correct in insisting there was nothing buried in the backyard and that she was prepared to lie.

“I bet you’re here to inflict as much damage upon him as you can,” McClintock said.

“No,” Ms Roberts said. “I hope Ben survives this nightmare.”

She told the court her husband had been devastated by the publication of the allegations of war crimes and domestic violence in 2018, which Nine argues are true.

After the publication she tearfully said one of their daughters asked: “Why doesn’t dad smile anymore?”