EXCLUSIVE In early November 2017, one of the most influential men in Australia’s military was passed a sensitive document by a billionaire media mogul. It was the start of a campaign.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.In early November 2017, one of the most influential men in Australia’s military was passed a sensitive document by a billionaire at the top of the nation’s media industry.
Such a notion was anathema to Stokes. Not only that, but the file revealed the allegations had reached the media. It was an extract of a confidential email I had sent Roberts-Smith via his lawyer weeks earlier, on October 17, 2017. It was just one of the attempts by Stokes, and those close to him, to build a campaign against those seeking to reveal the truth about Roberts-Smith’s actions in Afghanistan.
Nelson railed publicly against this masthead’s reporting on the ex-soldier, damning it as an attempt to “tear down our heroes”. Roberts-Smith could not have waged his war against the truth without his very wealthy, very influential and very determined cheer squad. The uniform of former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. His legal expenses are being funded by War Memorial chairman Kerry Stokes.These metamorphoses reveal a man with a singular focus. One former close friend of Roberts-Smith recalls his embrace of two life mottos: “Fake it til you make it” and “toughing it out”.
Stokes, a military buff and collector of Victoria Cross medals, appeared to onlookers enthralled by the veteran who stood 198 centimetres tall, was broad-shouldered, square-jawed and undeniably brave. “There’s no f---ing way I’d be able to keep paying what I’m paying for until Kerry got into it. That’s why now they’re shitting themselves because they realise he’s prepared to run his bank down to do it,” he says on the recording.
Another confidential source with similar concerns and who dealt with both Stokes and Roberts-Smith says that after it was reported that he had kicked an Afghan man from a cliff as part of an execution, the media mogul urged Roberts-Smith to fight back and, ultimately, to take legal action to defend what the billionaire described as “your truth”.
During the defamation case, it was revealed that Coulthart was employed not only to spin Roberts-Smith’s story but to conduct a confidential investigation into the war crimes allegations. Roberts-Smith’s lawyers successfully fought in the federal court to keep Coulthart’s report secret, arguing it was legally privileged.
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