Page:Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited (No 41) (2023, FCA).pdf/21

(4) The applicant having committed murder by machine gunning a man in Afghanistan with a prosthetic leg, is 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 (Imputation 6).

The respondents do not dispute that Imputation 1 was conveyed or communicated by the Group 2 articles. They dispute on various grounds that Imputations 4, 5 and 6 were conveyed or communicated by the Group 2 articles.

13 The applicant alleges that the following defamatory imputations of and concerning him were conveyed or communicated by the Group 3 articles:

(1) The applicant committed an act of domestic violence against a woman in the Hotel Realm in Canberra (Imputation 7).

(2) The applicant is a hypocrite who publicly supported Rosie Batty, a domestic violence campaigner, when in private he abused a woman (Imputation 8).

(3) The applicant as deputy commander of a 2009 SASR patrol, authorised the execution of an unarmed Afghan by a junior trooper in his patrol (Imputation 9).

(4) The applicant during the course of his 2010 deployment to Afghanistan, 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 (Imputation 10).

(5) The applicant as patrol commander in 2012 authorised the assault of an unarmed Afghan, who was being held in custody and posed no threat (Imputation 11).

(6) The applicant engaged in a campaign of bullying against a small and quiet soldier called Trooper M which included threats of violence (Imputation 12).

(7) The applicant threatened to report Trooper J to the International Criminal Court for firing at civilians, unless he provided an account of a friendly fire incident that was consistent with the applicant's (Imputation 13).

(8) The applicant assaulted an unarmed Afghan in 2012 (Imputation 14).

The respondents dispute that any of these imputations were conveyed or communicated by the Group 3 articles.

14 The applicant's case is that the imputations conveyed by the articles are of the most serious kind and that he is entitled to a substantial award of damages in each of the three proceedings.

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