“I was simultaneously in love with him and afraid of him.” The former lover of Ben Roberts-Smith explained yesterday why she continued to seek him out, even after he allegedly punched her in the face.
Person 17 — who cannot be identified — entered the witness box for the third day on Thursday morning, to give her side of a torrid six-month affair.
If classical literature is to be believed, most illicit love affairs end in a tornado of heartbreak, guilt and despair. This one — between two married people with children — seems to have been messier than most. What we have learnt this week is that although Roberts-Smith kept trying to end the relationship, she was unwilling to let him go.
This morning Person 17 was cross-examined about a series of text messages she sent to Roberts-Smith on March 3, 2018, the day after she said she had experienced a miscarriage. In the messages, the lovers were discussing the fact that she was booked in to have a termination at the Greenslopes Private Hospital, in Brisbane, the following Monday.
She admitted she had neglected to tell the former soldier that the procedure was unnecessary because she was no longer pregnant.
Under cross-examination, she burst into floods of tears, denying that she had lied about still being pregnant.
However, she agreed that she had sent a “deceitful message” because she wanted him to think she was still pregnant.
Robert-Smith’s lawyer Bruce McClintock SC asked her, “why did you want him to think you were pregnant when you were not?”
Fighting back sobs, she said, “we had been fighting all week… he wouldn’t talk to me. I wanted to see him face to face… I wanted to be able to tell him what had happened face to face.”
Approached by a stranger
On Wednesday, Person 17 gave evidence about the alleged events of April 3, 2018, when an unidentified man approached her early one morning near her house. The man showed her photographs of her having sex with Roberts-Smith, taken from outside a hotel window at the Milton Hotel in Brisbane, the usual venue for their trysts.
“[The man] said to me, ‘You’ve been seeing Ben Roberts-Smith.’ He showed me the photos. He said I was to tell [Roberts-Smith’s then-wife] Emma about the affair or the photos would be made public,” she said.
She told the court that the photos showed them having sex against the window several times, and that she did not ask the man who he was or how she would contact him to tell him she had done what he asked.
The rooms at the hotel are situated above the 20th floor; if the lovers had been having sex against a window 20 floors above a Brisbane street, the photos must have been taken by a drone.
Under cross-examination by McClintock, the woman denied fabricating her evidence. She said she didn’t tell Roberts-Smith about the photos because she didn’t trust him. She did admit that she had texted him the next day about staying together overnight, potentially at the same hotel, without mentioning the incident or the photographs.
On April 6, three days after the alleged incident, Person 17 drove to the Roberts-Smith marital home and told Emma Roberts about the affair.
Yesterday McClintock put it to the woman that the man near her house did not exist and that the incident didn’t occur.
“It did happen,” she replied.
Roberts-Smith, a former war hero, is suing three newspapers for defamation over a series of reports in 2018 which he alleges portray him as committing war crimes and of committing an act of violence against Person 17. The newspapers are pleading a defence of truth; Roberts-Smith denies all wrongdoing.
In her evidence this week Person 17 told the court that a few days before being approached by the unnamed man, Roberts-Smith had punched her face following a military veterans’ function at Parliament House in Canberra. The former soldier denies this and has given evidence that she fell down the stairs at Parliament House after drinking too much.
Under cross-examination Person 17 agreed that she had been very drunk at the Canberra event and had told the man she was sitting next to, Defence Force Deputy Chief Vice-Admiral Ray Griggs, that she was having an affair with Roberts-Smith.
Asked by McClintock why she had continued to seek out the company of Roberts-Smith after the alleged punch, she told the court she was “simultaneously in love with him and afraid of him”.
The hearing continues.
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