Ben Roberts-Smith’s ex-wife will return for another day of evidence in the Federal Court after saying she was pressured to lie for the decorated soldier or lose her children. 

Emma Roberts on Monday wiped away tears after detailing her marriage breakdown with the decorated soldier which culminated in fiery text messages with a friend. 

“I’m actually feeling so f***ing angry today,” one read.

“I want to punch the f***ing c*** in the face”, read another. 

It was nine days after Mr Roberts-Smith “left” for good, and months after finding out about his affair with a woman codenamed Person 17, she said. 

The woman turned up unannounced on her Sunshine Coast doorstop, “crying a lot” saying she had fallen pregnant with her husband, and revealing a black eye under dark sunglasses. 

“I asked why she was not seeing him (any more). She kept pointing to her black eye and she said ‘because of this’.”

The Victoria Cross recipient is suing The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times for defamation and denies their reports that he committed war crimes and murders in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2012.

Mr Roberts-Smith has strenuously denied all wrongdoing including allegations he assaulted the woman.

Soon after the encounter, Mr Roberts-Smith told his wife if allegations ever surfaced in the press “that I was to lie”, she said.

She didn’t want to lie, she said, but then he pointed to the couple’s children.

“If you don’t lie, you will lose them.”

“I knew at that point I had to lie for him.”

After news articles revealed the affair, Ms Roberts said she was asked to pose for a photograph accompanying a front-page story in The Australian newspaper, saying the couple had separated at the time. 

She denied a suggestion by Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister Bruce McClintock SC the couple had in fact separated during their relationship.

But as the couple’s marriage drew to its close in January 2020, Ms Roberts became suspicious money withdrawn from their joint bank account was being stashed in their garden, she said. 

But what she found instead buried in the soil was a pink lunchbox containing several USBs in duffel bags, which she gave to her friend who downloaded them onto a laptop.

“I said ‘I do not want to see what’s on them’,” she said, before returning the box in the ground. 

Ms Roberts’ testified to seeing her then-husband having downloaded photographs of his time in Afghanistan onto his laptop, and later watching him douse it in petrol and set it alight. 

She denied she was prompted by anger to fabricate stories in order to harm her ex-husband. 

The trial continues.

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