While the public is transfixed by the headlines coming out of the Ben Roberts-Smith court case,the Commonwealth is watching too - for an entirely different reason.
For seven years John McLeod ran errands large and small for Ben Roberts-Smith. Until the last errand meant the men never spoke again.
Behind the brave warrior image,some witnesses say they saw another side to the highly decorated soldier.
A serving SAS soldier said Ben Roberts-Smith bullied him including by spitting on the ground in front of him and slamming doors in his face.
Today on Please Explain,senior writer Deborah Snow joins Bianca Hall to talk about the Ben Roberts-Smith case,one of the most high-profile and high-stakes defamation hearings Australia has ever seen.
As shock new allegations rock the Ben Roberts-Smith trial,vital questions about how to protect investigative journalism and confidential sources are also in play.
How and why was Ben Roberts-Smith’s barrister seeking to help recruit new lawyers for witnesses slated to give evidence for the media?
This week saw that the SAS’s code of silence broken wide open,as hearings resumed in the high stakes Ben Roberts-Smith case and the courtroom,media and the public witnessed for the first time soldier turning against soldier.
An elite soldier who has given evidence that he saw Ben Roberts-Smith involved in two unlawful killings in Afghanistan has denied lying in the Federal Court.
War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith executed an Afghan detainee and directed a soldier to kill a second man during a mission on Easter Sunday in 2009,a serving Special Air Service soldier has told the Federal Court.
The former soldier has won access to a series of messages between lawyers defending the three newspapers he has accused of defamation and a solicitor representing a former soldier he served alongside.