Ben Roberts-Smith has scored a win in his ongoing defamation case against three major newspapers.
Roberts-Smith is currently suing The Age, The Canberra Times and The Herald.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the former SAS soldier has won access to messages between lawyers representing the newspapers he is accusing of defamation and Solider 56 who plans to testify against him.
According to SMH that the decision was made by Federal Court Justice Wendy Abraham, who found the messages were not protected by privilege, therefore Roberts-Smith is entitled to have access.
To put it lightly he stands to learn some pretty big gossip.
According to PerthNow the emails between the media outlets and solider 56 consist of them nutting out an agreement for him to testify.
Redacted copies of the emails that reference this agreement have already been produced but Robert-Smith is seeking the unredacted emails.
Basically, Robert-Smith’s lawyer argued that if the lawyers have already produced the emails they’ve already waived client confidentiality.
Perth Now has reported that Abraham has given the newspapers until Thursday to appeal the decision. Though they’d have to justify why they want to keep irrelevant information to themselves.
Robert-Smith’s trial is set to resume in February.
