“It doesn’t matter what happens to him or what jail cell he rots in,” Ben Roberts-Smith’s wife was told by her closest confidant as she went through a bitter divorce, a court has heard.
Emma Roberts, in her own brutal response, describes the father of her children as “a lying, cheating c*** of a human” that was going down like the doomed Titanic.
The messages between Ms Roberts and her best friend were read out in the Federal Court on Tuesday as Mr Roberts-Smith’s lawyers probe her alleged role in a series of damaging articles by Nine newspapers.
Mr Roberts-Smith is suing Nine and its journalists over the articles which claim he killed six detained Afghans while deployed, cheated on his wife and physically abused his mistress.
The Victoria Cross recipient steadfastly denies every allegation while Nine maintains they are true.
Nine called Ms Roberts to give evidence against her ex husband this week where she detailed the impact Nine’s reporting had on the Roberts-Smith family.
By mid-2018, the court has heard, Nine had alleged Mr Roberts-Smith was a war criminal and his mistress had revealed their relationship by arriving unannounced at his family home.
The family had been thrown “into chaos” by the accusations and investigations, the court has heard.
Ms Roberts said she spoke frequently with her best friend Danielle Scott through the “bitter, bitter divorce” that followed.
It was during a series of text messages, from November 2020, that Ms Scott said Ms Roberts needed to become financially secure.
Ms Scott also said it “didn’t matter” which prison cell Mr Roberts-Smith “rots in”.
Ms Roberts responded with a “yes” and an emoji of two praying hands, Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister Bruce McClintock SC told the court.
“You‘d very much like to see (Mr Roberts-Smith) rotting in a jail cell,” Mr McClintock said.
“No I absolutely would not,” Ms Roberts responded.
Mr McClintock said Ms Roberts and Ms Scott kept messaging laughing emojis indicating “glee” if he was locked up.
“He won’t go to jail,” Ms Roberts told Ms Scott.
“I don’t think he will either but (he’ll) be destroyed,” Ms Scott said.
“Because he’s a lying, cheating c*** human,” Ms Roberts said following up with another message “#titanic”.
Ms Roberts’ private text messages, according to Mr Roberts-Smith’s lawyers, reveal she hated her husband and was motivated by “revenge” to leak his private information to Nine.
“You’d very much like to see him lose this case, wouldn’t you?” barrister Bruce McClintock asked.
“I hope Ben survives this nightmare,” Ms Roberts said, her voice breaking in the witness box on Tuesday.
Ms Roberts denies she is the source of leaked images from the SAS base in Afghanistan that became central to some of Nine’s reports.
Nine claims Mr Roberts-Smith had buried a child’s lunch box containing USBs in the backyard of the family home.
Ms Roberts made similar claims in court – that she and Ms Scott noticed disturbed earth beneath a hose reel and dug up the lunch box with a pitchfork.
Ms Roberts told the court that Ms Scott had copied the contents of the USBs which included photographs of Mr Roberts-Smith’s deployments in Afghanistan.
The images of rowdy parties at the SAS base, including with soldiers dressed as the KKK and drinking from a dead Taliban’s prosthetic leg.
The 60 Minutes episode, originally broadcast by Nine, was played in the court on Tuesday.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s lawyers also accuse Ms Roberts of leaking confidential emails to Nine either directly or through Ms Scott – who had been given access to Mr Roberts-Smith’s account.
His lawyers said it was “sneaky and dishonest” to allow Ms Scott to access the emails an estimated 101 times – Ms Roberts said her friend was “helping me during a very difficult time”.
She denies leaking to Nine journalist Nick McKenzie.
The court heard Nine is paying Ms Roberts’ legal bills and she told the court she did not know how much they now totalled.
The bill, Ms Roberts suspects, is in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Mr Roberts-Smith has said his boss, Seven’s Kerry Stokes, is paying his legal bills.
