Ben Roberts-Smith VC has resigned from Seven West Media a day after a judge found he murdered unarmed civilians while serving in the military in Afghanistan.
The finding was made in the context of a civil case, where several newspapers successfully defended a defamation claim brought by Roberts-Smith by arguing what they had written about the former soldier was true.
The billionaire chairman of Seven, Kerry Stokes, financed Roberts-Smith’s legal costs in the high-profile trial after appointing him general manager of Seven Queensland in 2015.
The managing director and chief executive officer of Seven, James Warburton, told staff on Friday that Roberts-Smith has offered his resignation.
“As you’re all aware, the judgment in the defamation case was handed down yesterday,” Warburton said in an email seen by Guardian Australia.
“Ben has been on leave whilst the case was running, and today has offered his resignation, which we have accepted. We thank Ben for his commitment to Seven and wish him all the best.”
The ex-soldier stood aside from his job in Queensland in 2021 to focus on the trial.
He was supported in court by the network’s commercial director, Bruce McWilliam, who attended court and gave evidence.
On Thursday, Stokes said he had not spoken to Roberts-Smith but “the judgment does not accord with the man I know”.
“I know this will be particularly hard for Ben, who has always maintained his innocence,” Stokes said after the verdict. “That his fellow soldiers have disagreed with each other, this outcome will be the source of additional grief.”
Stokes had backed Roberts-Smith financially and publicly, insisting his employee was innocent as recently as last year.
At Seven West Media’s annual general meeting, Stokes said:“Ben Roberts-Smith is innocent and deserves legal representation and that scumbag journalists should be held to account. And quote me on that.”
During the defamation trial, one of the SAS witnesses for Roberts-Smith told the court Seven was paying their legal fees, which was at odds with Seven’s claim that the soldier’s evidence about the source of the payments was “not correct”.
A Seven spokesperson later clarified the witness fees were being “reimbursed” by another arm of the Stokes empire.
“The fees were reimbursed by Ace [Australian Capital Equity], the chair’s private company,” the spokesperson said. “The chairman felt it was unfair that soldiers were being brought before the inquiry without representation.”
The court heard that the request for reimbursement was not made to Stokes’s private company until after the evidence about legal financing was revealed in court.
Roberts-Smith took out a loan, believed to be $2m, from Stokes to fund his defamation case. He now appears almost certain to lose his Victoria Cross medal that he surrendered as collateral.
Nine investigative reporter Nick McKenzie on Thursday criticised Stokes for bankrolling Roberts-Smith. “This is a media proprietor who should believe in journalism, yet he was waging a huge war against investigative journalism,” McKenzie said.
