Ben Roberts-Smith: the allegations against Australia’s ‘uber-soldier’

He was once celebrated as Australia’s “uber-soldier”, said Michael Bachelard in The Sydney Morning Herald. Ben Roberts-Smith, a towering 6ft 7in corporal in the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), had a “bulging chest full of medals” by the time he returned from his sixth tour of Afghanistan in 2012, including the Victoria Cross, for his bravery against the Taliban.

Australia’s most-decorated living soldier was soon very much in the public eye: there was a display devoted to him in the...