After another crushing legal defeat, Ben Roberts-Smith eyes a High Court appeal
Ben Roberts-Smith has lost his reputation as a war hero. Next could be his liberty.
The ink on the Ben Roberts-Smith v Nine appeal verdict was barely dry, when the decorated soldier and adjudged war criminal announced he was off to the High Court — with possible help from Gina Rinehart.
Not for “BRS” the usual statement about how he would review the judgment with his lawyers and consider an appeal based on judicial error. He was ploughing ahead regardless, perhaps mindful that an even worse fate than public shame could await him — jail.
At trial, Justice Anthony Besanko found Roberts-Smith was complicit — to the civil standard of proof — in the murder of four unarmed Afghans from 2009-2012 when serving with the SAS.
The trial was closely watched by the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI) which has been charged with following up the findings of the Brereton report into the special forces in Afghanistan. It is led by a former judge, Mark Weinberg KC.
