Justice Anthony Besanko found the newspapers had proven that Roberts-Smith was a war criminal who was involved in the unlawful killing and assault of unarmed Afghan prisoners.
He also found Roberts-Smith bullied a fellow soldier.
The following meanings were found by the judge to be substantially true:
- Roberts-Smith murdered an unarmed and defenceless Afghan civilian, Ali Jan, in September 2012 by kicking him off a cliff and procuring the soldiers under his command to shoot him.
- He broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement and is therefore a criminal.
- He disgraced his country, Australia, and the Australian army by his conduct as a member of the SAS in Afghanistan.
- He committed another murder on Easter Sunday, 2009, by pressuring a newly deployed and inexperienced SAS soldier to execute an elderly, unarmed Afghan in order to “blood the rookie”.
- He committed a third murder by machine-gunning a man with a prosthetic leg on the Easter Sunday mission.
- He was so callous and inhumane that he took the prosthetic leg back to Australia and encouraged his soldiers to use it as a novelty beer drinking vessel.
- As deputy commander of the 2009 SAS patrol on Easter Sunday, he acquiesced in the execution of an unarmed Afghan by a junior trooper in his patrol.
- He bullied a fellow soldier, Person 1.
- In 2010, he bashed an unarmed Afghan in the face with his fists and in the stomach with his knee and in so doing alarmed two patrol commanders to the extent that they ordered him to back off.
- As patrol commander in 2012 he authorised the assault of an unarmed Afghan, who was being held in custody and posed no threat.
- He assaulted an unarmed Afghan in 2012.
Besanko did not find the newspapers had established that Roberts-Smith committed an act of domestic violence against a former lover. However, he found the newspapers could rely on a defence known as contextual truth in relation to that allegation.
Under this defence, the newspapers argued that some of the articles conveyed the following meanings:
- Roberts-Smith broke the moral and legal rules of military engagement and is therefore a criminal.
- He disgraced his country, Australia, and the Australian army by his conduct as a member of the SAS in Afghanistan.
The newspapers argued successfully that those meanings were substantially true and that his reputation could not have been further harmed by the publication of the domestic violence allegation.