Quentin Bryce declines request to testify for VC winner Ben Roberts-Smith

Ben Roberts-Smith paid unannounced visit to former governor-general’s home to apologise over defamation hearing bid.

Dame Quentin Bryce with Ben Roberts-Smith in 2011. Picture: AP

Former governor-general Dame Quentin Bryce – who pinned the Victoria Cross to Ben Roberts-Smith’s chest – will decline to ­appear as a character witness at the alleged war criminal’s defamation hearing against Nine newspapers.

The Weekend Australian has learned Mr Roberts-Smith paid an unannounced visit to Dame Quentin at her Brisbane home on Wednesday morning, ­seeking to apologise for failing to contact her before his legal team announced she would appear in court to vouch for his reputation.

The 78-year-old, whose husband recently died, was surprised by the visit, which was described by those close to her as uninvited and “inappropriate”.

The 202cm-tall former Special Air Service Regiment soldier arrived with a large bunch of flowers, obscuring his image on her security camera before she opened the door to him.

Mr Roberts-Smith told The Weekend Australian through his lawyer Mark O’Brien: “It was a private and welcome visit, which out of respect for Dame Quentin I will not discuss.”

In 2019, Dame Quentin provided what has been described as a “polite reference” for Mr Roberts-Smith, following a request from him and his solicitors.

It’s understood she has nothing further to add on his behalf.

Sources close to Dame Quentin said she’d had “no contact” with Mr Roberts-Smith or his legal team about appearing in court for him before his lawyer Bruce McClintock SC told the Federal Court last month she would do so.

Dame Quentin is the second of Mr Roberts-Smith’s intended witnesses to decline to support him in court, after Nine revealed his ex-wife Emma Roberts-Smith would give evidence against him.

Mr Roberts-Smith, 42, is suing Nine newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times for defamation over a series of ­reports published in 2018, which he says portrayed him as a ­murderous war criminal during his time as a Special Air Service soldier in ­Afghanistan in 2009-12.

The decorated veteran has denied the allegations, while Nine has indicated it will defend the allegations using a truth defence when the matter goes to trial in Sydney on June 7.

Dame Quentin Bryce awards the Victoria Cross to Ben Roberts-Smith in 2011. Picture: Department of Defence

This week, Nine said it would no longer press murder allegations against Mr Roberts-Smith in relation to the death of an Afghan man on the banks of the Helmand river.

It also corrected the record in relation to its allegation that Mr Roberts-Smith dragged an Afghan adolescent from a Toyota HiLux and killed him, after it emerged the SAS veteran was in another part of Afghanistan on that day.

Nine’s legal team amended its ­defence, saying the incident happened on a different date.

It continues to allege the VC recipient committed six murders while on duty in Afghanistan.

Mr Roberts-Smith was this week accused in court of wiping the contents of his laptop’s hard drive five days after being told he needed to retain the material for his upcoming defamation trial.

The court has previously been told Mr Roberts-Smith buried a USB containing classified mat­erial in a pink, child’s lunch box in his Queensland backyard.

His wife is expected to give evidence about the USB, and alleged efforts undertaken by her former husband to “communicate covertly” with witnesses, including former soldiers.

The trial is scheduled to begin in Sydney on June 7 and is expected to run for 10 weeks.

Mr Roberts-Smith, who has received financial support from media mogul Kerry Stokes, will be the first witness to take the stand.

On the eve of the trial, Nine Entertainment issued an extraordinary demand for legal costs, asking the private company owned by the Stokes family to cover any financial liabilities incurred by the former soldier’s court action, if he was unable to pay.