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Telstra records suggest a close friend of Ben Roberts-Smith's ex-wife may have accessed the war veteran's email account more than 100 times, a Sydney court has heard.
- Ben Roberts-Smith's lawyers say the account was accessed 101 times
- Mr Roberts-Smith is suing his wife while a case against three media giants is ongoing
- Two friends of Emma Roberts allegedly had access to the email password
The case Mr Roberts-Smith launched against Emma Roberts is running concurrently with his high-stakes defamation proceedings against three newspapers.
It was triggered when his defamation opponents issued a notice to produce specific documents, which his legal team suspects may have arisen from access to an email account he used for confidential legal correspondence.
Mr Roberts-Smith's lawyers have accused Ms Roberts of accessing the account and say they are concerned she may have passed on confidential information to third parties.
His barrister, Arthur Moses SC, today applied in the Federal Court to add Ms Roberts' best friend Danielle Scott and her husband as respondents in the case.
Mr Moses cited Telstra records which he claimed established that either Ms Scott or her husband accessed a "hosting account" of Ben Roberts-Smith's company, RS Group Australia.
He told the court the access occurred "on at least 101 occasions" between January 2020 and May 2021.
"The RS Group Australia email hosting account ... is password-protected and enables a person, once logged on, to access the email account of any RS Group user, including the applicant's," Mr Moses said.
AAP: James Gourley
)Mr Roberts-Smith has previously sworn in an affidavit that Ms Scott or her husband were never given the password.
Mr Moses said the Telstra evidence raised a series of new issues, including how the couple accessed the password, whether they accessed Mr Roberts-Smith's specific email account, and whether they passed on any confidential information to third parties.
Mr Moses said if Ms Scott and her husband were not added as respondents, there would be "a basis to commence separate proceedings against them".
Had his client been aware of the Telstra records earlier, he would have included the pair as respondents when the case began, Mr Moses said.
Justice Robert Bromwich reserved his decision.
Mr Roberts-Smith's defamation case, against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times, is on hold until at least November due to Sydney's COVID-19 outbreak.
He alleges he was defamed by reports that included allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, bullying of colleagues and domestic violence upon a woman in a Canberra hotel room.
Ms Roberts will be a defence witness in the defamation trial.