Ben Roberts-Smith files appeal after losing landmark defamation case

War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith has lodged an appeal following his landmark defamation loss to three newspapers. The Victoria Cross recipient sued The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times over a series of articles, published in 2018, which accused him of war crimes . Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko last month ruled there was substantial truth to some of the allegations put forward by the media outlets and dismissed the proceedings. Mr Roberts-Smith’s legal team on Tuesday filed a notice of intention to appeal with the Federal Court. The newspapers had accused Mr Roberts-Smith of war crimes, with the case expecting to have cost more than $25m in legal fees. Mr Roberts-Smith has persistently denied the allegations. Following his court loss last month, he told Nine at Perth airport that he was “devastated”. “It’s a terrible outcome and it’s the incorrect outcome,” Mr Roberts-Smith said at the time. “We will look at it and consider whether or not we need to file an appeal but there’s not much more I can say about it.” The grounds of Mr Roberts-Smith’s appeal are not yet known. Mr Roberts-Smith had until July 12 to file an appeal. Justice Besanko officially dismissed the proceedings in June after finding the articles proved - to the civil standard of the balance of probabilities - the most serious imputations. He also found the newspapers made out the defence of contextual truth for the remainder of the untrue imputations. Justice Besanko found allegations of threats and domestic violence could not be proven, but was “satisfied” the defence of contextual truth had been made out in respect of these untrue imputations. While not every murder allegation was established by the newspapers, the judge found the two key killings had taken place. The first article, in June 2018, did not name Mr Roberts-Smith but said a soldier called “Leonidas” kicked a detainee off a cliff and had him executed. The case has since returned to the Federal Court, where it was revealed Mr Roberts-Smith had agreed to pay the costs of the failed case on an indemnity basis from March 17, 2020. At a case management hearing last month, Nine had issued subpoenas to Seven and Kerry Stokes’ private company Australian Capital Equity (ACE) for records of attendance by lawyers representing both companies at the defamation hearing. The subpoenas are also requesting any correspondence between the entities and their lawyers. Seven, ACE and their law firms applied to set aside the subpoenas as they fight a third-party costs order for the costs of the proceedings. The company and its owner, billionaire media mogul Mr Stokes, are fighting the application after funding the case in its early days before it was transferred to a loan from Australian Capital Equity, which Mr Stokes also owns. A two-day hearing for the costs application against Mr Roberts-Smith, Seven and ACE has been set down for September 4.