Nine

Media companies seeking access to the ABC’s unredacted defence in a now-settled defamation case brought by Christian Porter told a judge the principle of open justice required that the pleading be made public, while the former attorney-general argued there was no “superior” public interest in airing the document.

Media giant Nine has paid more than $150,000 in fines and will repay subscribers and advertisers $450,000 for allegedly slapping them with excessive payment surcharges on credit card transactions.

Trial in the defamation case by accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has been adjourned for three weeks after COVID-19 restrictions prevented witnesses from travelling to Sydney and national security concerns were raised regarding Afghani witnesses set to give evidence.

Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has denied claims that he assaulted a woman with whom he was having an affair and took naked photos of her while she was unconscious after attending a Parliament House function in March 2018.

Ben Roberts-Smith has told a court that he exchanged emails with SAS witnesses about a compound where he was alleged to have murdered a man with a prosthetic leg in the lead-up to his defamation trial.

War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith has denied allegations that he sent off threatening letters to a former SAS colleague to stop him from talking to the media and a defence inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Ben Roberts-Smith has admitted that he owns a glass replica of the prosthetic leg belonging to a man he killed in Afghanistan, as trial in his defamation case entered its third week.

Ben Roberts-Smith has been accused of “inventing stories” to conceal facts that would support publisher Fairfax’s version of events concerning war crimes allegedly committed by the former SAS soldier in Afghanistan.

Accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has told a court it was “more than reasonable” for him to assume an unarmed Afghan man was a hostile insurgent because he saw another soldier shoot at the man first.

Ben Roberts-Smith used burner phones to call SAS colleagues after growing fearful that members of the media were listening into his phone calls after a series of articles were published in 2018 that accused him of war crimes and domestic violence, a court has heard.