Ben Roberts-Smith: a war hero’s reputation at stake in Australia’s defamation ‘trial of the century’

A decade out of the military, Ben Roberts-Smith looks still every inch the archetypal soldier.

Just shy of two metres tall, straight-backed and powerfully built, the former Australian SAS corporal marches purposefully each morning up the federal court steps in Sydney, clean shaven and hair immaculately swept.

Each morning he takes the same seat, an impassive observer as brutal allegations, touching every element of his life, are pored over in excoriating detail.

Roberts-Smith, a recipient of the Australian military's highest honour, the Victoria Cross, is suing three newspapers over a series of ­reports he alleges are defamatory and portray him as committing war crimes, including murder.

The newspapers are defending their reporting as true. Roberts-Smith denies any wrongdoing.

Before its start, the defamation case brought by Roberts-Smith was billed variously as the trial of the century, a proxy war crimes trial, and a public examination of Australia's two-decades long war in Afghanistan. It has been all of those things.

The hearings have so far lasted 99 days, at an estimated cost of A$25m (£14.5m). With cross-examination of witnesses finally complete, the court will now break until 18 July before final submissions from each side, and then a wait of many months for a verdict.