The rich and influential cheer squad who backed a war criminal

In early November 2017, one of the most influential men in Australia’s military was passed a sensitive document by a billionaire at the top of the nation’s media industry.

The file provided to Chief of Army Angus Campbell by media mogul Kerry Stokes concerned the country’s most famous soldier: Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith.

Angus Campbell and Kerry Stokes in discussion ahead of the Anzac Day national service at the Australian War Memorial in 2021.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Stokes considered Roberts-Smith an Australian hero due to his extraordinary feats during the grinding conflict in Afghanistan. He’d been recognised not only with the Victoria Cross for his actions at battle of Tizak (2010), but a Medal for Gallantry (2006) and a Commendation for Distinguished Service (2012).

But the document in Stokes’ hand cast a shadow over Roberts-Smith. It detailed allegations that some within the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) believed its most famous alumnus may not be all that he seemed.

Such a notion was anathema to Stokes. Not only that, but the file revealed the allegations had reached the media. It was an extract of a confidential email I had sent Roberts-Smith via his lawyer weeks earlier, on October 17, 2017.

My email made clear that some of those who fought alongside Roberts-Smith in Afghanistan were questioning his reputation. It referenced an internal military complaint signed by three SAS patrol commanders questioning whether Roberts-Smith’s Commendation for Distinguished Service should have been awarded, given allegations he had covered up a bungled mission in 2012.

The complete email also stated that I had “been informed that several of Mr Roberts-Smith’s ex [SAS] colleagues have spoken about him to the Inspector General inquiry”, referring to the war crimes investigation being run in secret by senior NSW judge Paul Brereton.

Precisely what Stokes hoped to achieve by giving Campbell an extract of the email intended for Roberts-Smith is unclear because Stokes is not saying, though he was approached for comment.

But Defence sources, whose identity must be protected because they are not authorised to speak publicly, believe the billionaire was seeking to persuade Campbell that the media was unfairly circling a military hero. If the media didn’t heed threats from Stokes-funded lawyers to back off from Roberts-Smith, Campbell – who in July 2018 would be promoted to defence force chief – could be a powerful ally.

It was just one of the attempts by Stokes, and those close to him, to build a campaign against those seeking to reveal the truth about Roberts-Smith’s actions in Afghanistan.

Weeks earlier, Stokes had publicly called for the SAS to be “applauded and respected” in a newspaper piece that savaged early efforts by me and co-author Chris Masters to scrutinise the Victoria Cross recipient.

It would be Stokes who would ultimately finance Roberts-Smith’s defamation action against us for exposing his involvement in alleged war crimes. More recently, at Seven’s 2022 annual general meeting, Stokes attacked “scumbag journalists” for reporting on Roberts-Smith.

By the time he made those comments, Masters and I were five years into an investigation that had unearthed prisoner execution allegations, sparked police probes and prompted Roberts-Smith to launch what became known as the defamation trial of the century. On Thursday, he comprehensively lost the trial with the Federal Court finding our reporting had truthfully revealed Roberts-Smith as a murderer and war criminal.

But back in late 2017, when my email to Roberts-Smith was slipped to Campbell, Masters and I were still gathering information and seeking to engage with Roberts-Smith to test its accuracy. That was the point of the email.

The war hero never took up my offer of an interview, but my email created a dilemma for Campbell.

Roberts-Smith in front of his portrait at the Australian War Memorial in 2014.Credit: Jay Cronan

The general sat on the board of the Stokes-chaired Australian War Memorial, an institution dedicated to Australia’s military history. The memorial had championed a carefully curated story about Roberts-Smith under the guidance of its chief executive Brendan Nelson, a former defence minister.

Nelson railed publicly against this masthead’s reporting on the ex-soldier, damning it as an attempt to “tear down our heroes”.

In contrast to Nelson and Stokes, Campbell wasn’t so sure that Roberts-Smith was above scrutiny or beyond reproach. Rather, Campbell was one of very few military officials who suspected the Roberts-Smith story might be much murkier than that propagated by the war memorial.

Campbell had already been briefed on the direction of the secretive Brereton Inquiry and knew that Roberts-Smith was emerging as its highest priority target because of allegations he had murdered handcuffed Afghan prisoners and civilians.

This was why, after receiving the file from the media magnate, the general proceeded with caution. Campbell sealed the document in an envelope. He then despatched it to the Brereton Inquiry.

Ben Roberts-Smith with Brendan Nelson in 2013.Credit: Andrew Meares

The Stokes-Campbell interaction is a minor event relative to those that unfolded in the federal court on Thursday, when Justice Anthony Besanko found that Roberts-Smith was, on the balance of probabilities, a war criminal and a disgrace to his country and the Australian military.

But it is one of several episodes revealed in confidential documents and source briefings which provides a rare window into actions taken by Roberts-Smith’s key backers.

Roberts-Smith could not have waged his war against the truth without his very wealthy, very influential and very determined cheer squad.

Stokes’ interaction with Campbell was disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information Act application I lodged with Defence.

Other documents uncovered by this masthead reveal how top Seven executives, including former chief executive Tim Worner and commercial director Bruce McWilliam, stridently defended Roberts-Smith behind the scenes.

McWilliam privately savaged Brereton’s handling of his exhaustive war crimes inquiry and smeared witnesses who had implicated Roberts-Smith in unlawful behaviour.

The leaked files also reveal how Roberts-Smith’s defamation lawyer, Monica Allen, sought to embolden the embattled ex-soldier as evidence about his allegedly criminal behaviour mounted by dismissing the journalists investigating him as mice nibbling around a god’s feet.

Toughing it out

Roberts-Smith is nothing if not determined. He transformed himself from a chubby regular army infantryman in 1996 to a muscle-bound patrol commander in the SAS, the elite regiment he joined in 2003 after a gruelling selection course; from one of many unnamed SAS soldiers who repeatedly deployed to Afghanistan to the most decorated Afghan veteran in Australia; from a middling high school student who never went to university to a mature-age MBA candidate and media executive; from an absent, indifferent husband to Australian Father of the Year; from a bully known in military circles to prey on and punch those smaller than him to the face of public campaigns aimed at stopping violence and bullying; from a man who enjoyed multiple audiences with the Queen and successive prime ministers to a figure of global infamy.

The uniform of former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

These metamorphoses reveal a man with a singular focus. One former close friend of Roberts-Smith recalls his embrace of two life mottos: “Fake it til you make it” and “toughing it out”. Roberts-Smith hinted at this approach to life in a speech about leadership, which he said involved “pressing on through hard stuff day in day out, doing the best you can over and again, never even whispering ‘can’t’.”

“He could charm people when they were useful and was very convincing,” says a former friend about the way Roberts-Smith won friends and influenced people. “People want to believe a war hero.”

Being born into privilege at the top of the Western Australian social set helped. His father, Len, a WA Supreme Court judge and military general, sent his two sons to the finest schools in Perth. After he received his VC, uber-wealthy business people and then governor-general Quentin Bryce were so impressed with Roberts-Smith’s grace and charm that they, too, championed his story.

Seven chairman and owner Kerry Stokes with son Ryan and Ben Roberts-Smith.Credit: Luke Marsden

Nelson emerged as an unabashed supporter when he became director of the war memorial in 2012. For Nelson, Roberts-Smith was a modern Anzac hero who could inspire young and old.

But the biggest influence in Roberts-Smith’s post-military life was the billionaire who “BRS” called “KMS”; Kerry Matthew Stokes.

The media mogul supported Roberts-Smith’s rise to general manager of the Queensland arm of Stokes’ Seven West Media empire in 2015, spoke to him regularly as a friend and mentor and invited the war hero and his family to his ski lodge in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

Stokes, a military buff and collector of Victoria Cross medals, appeared to onlookers enthralled by the veteran who stood 198 centimetres tall, was broad-shouldered, square-jawed and undeniably brave.

Sources with knowledge of the pair’s dealings say that when Masters and I began investigating Roberts-Smith in 2017, the ex-soldier determinedly focused on maintaining the support of the Stokes’ camp, convincing them of his denials of what Besanko this week labelled as true: his involvement in prisoner executions.

Despite this, Roberts-Smith’s claims of innocence resonated in the Stokes camp. Even Roberts-Smith found this odd.

“It’s bizarre. Other businesses would have just gone, ‘Mate, it’s not tenable’,” Roberts-Smith was secretly recorded saying to a confidant about the backing of the Stokes camp.

“I offered to resign at the start [of the scandal] and they said, ‘Nah’. I probably won’t leave the fold now ... I think I’m indebted a little bit now to Kerry. Bottom line, I’d be f---ed without him ... we’ve certainly had those conversations already.”

In the same recorded conversation, Roberts-Smith described how Stokes’ backing had empowered him to pursue those pushing for scrutiny of his wartime conduct.

“There’s no f---ing way I’d be able to keep paying what I’m paying for until Kerry got into it. That’s why now they’re shitting themselves because they realise he’s prepared to run his bank down to do it,” he says on the recording.

“Now it is personal. Now I’m going to do everything I can to f---ing destroy them, mate. Like everyone – and I’ll keep going – all those journalists. And that’s my sole f---ing mission in life. Put it this way, mate, Stokes isn’t an idiot. He’s not going to back someone … who’s a loser.”

Such was his fervour in defence of his reputation, one source who dealt closely with Roberts-Smith during 2018 later wondered if the soldier genuinely believed his own lies.

“I think he’s a narcissist. He could look you in the eye and lie without a moment’s hesitation,” said the source, who requested anonymity for fear of blowback from Roberts-Smith.

Another confidential source with similar concerns and who dealt with both Stokes and Roberts-Smith says that after it was reported that he had kicked an Afghan man from a cliff as part of an execution, the media mogul urged Roberts-Smith to fight back and, ultimately, to take legal action to defend what the billionaire described as “your truth”.

No evidence has ever emerged that Stokes knew Roberts-Smith was lying. On the contrary, the billionaire has always appeared convinced of his story. At Seven’s most recent AGM, Stokes reportedly said: “Ben Roberts-Smith is innocent.”

The spin campaign

In addition to paying for his defamation legal costs via a loan facility to Roberts-Smith, Stokes facilitated the hiring of a public relations firm run by influential Sydney spinner Sue Cato to support his increasingly embattled executive.

The foundation of Roberts-Smith’s campaign against the mounting case was his claim that jealous SAS soldiers were so envious of him that they had peddled lies to credulous journalists. This claim was amplified by his senior barristers during his defamation case and reported by sympathetic journalists, gaining currency through repetition.

One of those pressing Robert-Smith’s case was Cato’s then employee, veteran high-profile television journalist turned PR agent Ross Coulthart, who is close to Stokes and now works for Seven West Media.

During the defamation case, it was revealed that Coulthart was employed not only to spin Roberts-Smith’s story but to conduct a confidential investigation into the war crimes allegations. Roberts-Smith’s lawyers successfully fought in the Federal Court to keep Coulthart’s report secret, arguing it was legally privileged.

Ross Coulthart has been part of the Ben Roberts-Smith PR team.

Coulthart’s report was circulated to Stokes’ key advisers and while its contents have never been revealed, a clue to its conclusions may lie in a series of text messages Coulthart sent the then executive editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, James Chessell, in an attempt to shut down our digging in 2018.

“I am very confident, based on numerous interviews with serving and former SASR operators and other sources here and OS [overseas], that the allegations against BRS would be strongly and credibly disputed by numerous credible direct witnesses,” Coulthart texted Chessell.

“I’m happy to sit down with you for an off-the-record chat but I don’t want to get yelled at by Nick McKenzie just because I’m doing him a favour by offering to help fix a looming disaster for him and the paper.”

Coulthart sent these messages after I had earlier called him and, in a heated conversation, asked him to confirm if he was working for Roberts-Smith or Stokes. At the time, Coulthart refused to say, but News Corp journalists later briefed me confidentially that Coulthart was energetically convincing their editors of Roberts-Smith’s innocence.

Coulthart never followed through on his offer of an off-the-record briefing. He pulled out of a planned meeting with me at the eleventh hour, citing legal advice. Roberts-Smith also declined my numerous requests in 2017 and 2018 to discuss the allegations he was facing.

Instead, Roberts-Smith and Coulthart focused on convincing others that the former soldier deserved complete support.

One of them was one of Stokes’ longest-serving and most trusted advisers.

One of Roberts-Smith’s lawyers, and friend Monica Allen, with Seven’s commercial director, Bruce McWilliam, outside the Federal Court.Credit: Janie Barrett

Powerful backers

Bruce McWilliam, the silver haired 67-year-old commercial director of Seven West Media, is an exceedingly wealthy commercial lawyer with deep connections to the elite of Australian business and politics and a reputation as a brutal litigator.

He boasts a property portfolio worth an estimated $200 million and an inner circle that includes former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. He was also on the front line of the Roberts-Smith defamation fight.

Confidential emails McWilliam sent to journalist and shareholder activist Stephen Mayne in 2021, and which have been leaked to this masthead, provide the most detailed insight to date about the thinking inside the Stokes camp.

McWilliam sent some of his emails more than two years after the initial stories that led to Roberts-Smith’s lawsuit and after Masters and I had kept publishing stories that built on our initial journalism.

They included reports revealing police had found their own SAS witnesses to prisoner executions allegedly involving Roberts-Smith; that detectives had submitted a brief of evidence about the war hero to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to seek advice on whether he should be charged (the AFP investigations are ongoing); that Roberts-Smith had buried evidence in his backyard; and had sent threatening anonymous letters to a key SAS witness.

In an email sent in January 2021, McWilliam told Mayne that it was “laudatory [sic] that Mr Stokes AC supports Ben Roberts-Smith VC with his own money”. In making this point, McWilliam positioned Roberts-Smith as a “small guy” who the billionaire Stokes was helping to “stand up” against a “big company”.

In another email, he denigrated soldiers who alleged they witnessed Roberts-Smith’s involvement in war crimes.

“There are a few witnesses protecting themselves and blaming others, including one guy who actually has immunity even tho [sic] he is a crook but he’s their [Masters and my] main source,” McWilliam wrote of one SAS soldier.

Portions of McWilliam’s analysis in his emails was inaccurate. The soldier he refers to as “a crook” was never a source, nor had any soldier been granted immunity by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions when McWilliam authored his emails. McWilliam’s claim Brereton had “a bet each way” on Roberts-Smith is unsupported by evidence.

McWilliam derided the Brereton Inquiry, which in November 2020 revealed it had found credible information that 39 Afghans were allegedly murdered by Australian special forces in 23 incidents. By then, Roberts-Smith had outed himself as one of the inquiry’s targets.

McWilliam accused Brereton of having “wasted a heap of time and money” and treating soldiers “like shit”, implying the judge had disregarded soldiers’ legal rights and mental health.

McWilliam, who declined to comment on these matters, also claimed to Mayne that Brereton was double-dipping on his pay, “drawing a judges [sic] salary as well as his IGADF [defence force Inspector-General] stipend”.

But the truth was Brereton, recently appointed commissioner of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, refused to collect his Inspector-General stipend during the inquiry. And while the inquiry no doubt rattled those suspected of war crimes, Brereton’s final report disclosed that all witnesses had “access to appropriate legal and welfare support”, including mental health support.

“All witnesses were informed of their right to a lawyer and had lawyers arranged for them if requested,” the inquiry’s report stated.

Despite some flawed analysis, McWilliam accurately acknowledged what was borne out this week: that Roberts-Smith might be in trouble if the Afghan and SAS witnesses who claimed to have witnessed prisoner executions fronted the defamation case and gave compelling testimony.

In June 2021, the Stokes adviser wrote: “The witnesses forthcoming are v important. Afghan and the [SAS] servicemen.”

He finished his email with the words “time will tell”.

Commercial rivalry

The leaked documents reveal another key motivation for the Stokes camp in supporting Roberts-Smith was the belief that our investigation into war crimes was the product of commercial media rivalry rather than genuine reporting about prisoner and civilian executions.

This claim was embraced in an August 2018 internal email from then Seven chief executive Tim Worner, who described our prisoner execution revelations as “a relentless attack by a rival newspaper company”.

“Ben and all our people in television in Queensland have our respect and total support,” Worner wrote.

In response to questions, Worner said his note was “an appropriate expression of support for a fellow team member”, and “part of the normal thrust and parry of the universally accepted intense competition between rival Australian media companies”.

Roberts-Smith’s ability to secure a loan facility from the publicly listed Seven (the loan was later shifted to the Stokes-owned ACE Capital) to launch his lawsuit was also predicated on the notion it was a proxy war against Nine.

The names of Stokes and Seven’s then chief financial officer Warwick Lynch appear at the bottom of an August 2019 letter to Roberts-Smith that states: “We recognise that part of you being a target by our opposition (Nine/Fairfax) in the [war crimes] stories … arises out of your employment by Seven.

“Because of what we understand to be the strong case to defend your reputation … we are prepared to make available legal funding.”

The stories Roberts-Smith unsuccessfully sued over were published by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald months before the papers’ owner, Fairfax Media, was absorbed via a corporate merger by Nine Entertainment, Seven’s long-standing rival. Fairfax had no competitive beef with Seven.

Worner’s 2018 email described how the reporting of Roberts-Smith’s involvement in war crimes had sullied “his inspiring military service record”; McWilliam’s emails spell out the moral imperative in supporting “someone who’s fought for his country”; and when Nelson appeared in the Federal Court to give character testimony for Roberts-Smith, he described him as “the most respected, admired and revered Australian soldier in more than half a century”.

Nelson did not respond to direct requests for comment and a spokesman for his employer, Boeing, declined to comment on his behalf.

‘A supreme being’

Nelson wasn’t alone in his adulation of Roberts-Smith. His defamation lawyer Monica Allen attracted controversy in August 2020 when the News Corp tabloids ran photos of her holding hands with Roberts-Smith.

This masthead has also obtained a document Allen gave to Roberts-Smith in which she invoked the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha – “a supreme being powerful enough to remove obstacles and ensure success” – as her client battled war crimes allegations and adverse publicity.

In the missive, Allen likens me to a “mouse… at the feet of Ganesha”.

“A mouse destroys everything around it and tears things up unnecessarily (eg. Nick McKenzie). This reinforces the fact that Ganesha is the ultimate power,” Allen wrote. Allen also gave Roberts-Smith a statuette of Ganesha made of citrine, Roberts-Smith’s birthstone.

“The positive energy of citrine drives away darkness and protects you against negative people (eg. Nick McKenzie),” Allen wrote.

This masthead has also uncovered a social media post in which Allen endorsed a controversial cartoon that celebrated the 2010 battle in which Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross.

An obscene social media post depicting a battle at Tizak where Ben Roberts-Smith won an award. With comments from Monica Allen.Credit: Instagram

The cartoon shows an SAS soldier standing on the body of a dead Taliban fighter alongside a sign that reads “come visit our mosque”. It also includes a drawing of a giant winged penis.

The awarding of the Victoria Cross was a point of contention in the defamation case, with a small number of SAS soldiers revealing their doubts about the circumstances in which the honour was bestowed on Roberts-Smith.

In her social media post, Allen describes the cartoon as “a perfect depiction of a day that should be celebrated”, while attacking soldiers who harboured doubts about the famous battle: “Shame on anyone who wasn’t there (and maybe some that were there) for suggesting otherwise.

“I’ll probs [sic] read about that comment in the Fairfax press soon but (laughing emoji).”

The man who had arranged for Allen’s legal bills to be paid, Kerry Stokes, never appeared in the federal court during Roberts-Smith’s defamation trial.

But in November 2020, it was confirmed that Roberts-Smith had agreed to hand over his Victoria Cross to Stokes if he lost his case and needed to repay the millions of dollars Stokes had lent him to fund Allen, her boss Mark O’Brien and four barristers.

In the wake of Roberts-Smith’s devastating loss in court, Stokes said the judgement “does not accord with the man I know”. But yesterday the media boss and his notorious employee parted ways when Roberts-Smith handed in his resignation from Channel Seven.

• Additional reporting by Nick Bonyhady
• Crossing the Line by Nick McKenzie will be published in July, to pre-order click here.