Channel Nine paid $700,000 to silence a former lover of Ben Roberts-Smith, codenamed Person 17, who recorded a phone conversation revealing reporter Nick McKenzie had accessed Roberts-Smith's privileged legal defence documents. The payment was made eight days before Roberts-Smith's appeal, with Nine initially seeking to suppress the information for 50 years. The Victoria Cross recipient, found on the balance of probabilities to have committed war crimes, has questioned whether the legal proceedings were ever a level playing field.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.