The Nine Board is under pressure to explain what they knew about a secret payment to a key witness in their war crimes case.

This is a major scandal.

Nine paid a key witness in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case $700,000 in hush money to stop her from going public with allegations of misbehaviour against journalist Nick McKenzie.

Nine’s own witness in the Ben Roberts-Smith case, who they claimed was a domestic violence victim, sent explosive emails to Nine threatening to tell the court that the media company had unlawfully obtained his privileged legal strategy.

She said she had an audio recording of McKenzie, and other evidence, as proof.

In response, sources told me that Nine paid the witness, known as Person 17, $700,000 under an agreement with a confidentiality clause. Buying her silence.

This payment was made not long before Roberts-Smith’s appeal against the network began.

It prevented the damning allegations from being raised in public and potentially forming part of the appeal.

The email from the woman, whohad an affair with Roberts-Smith, was sent to Nine executive Tory Maguire and executive counsel Larina Alick in March 2023.

In it, she wrote: "There is a mountain of evidence of Nick… telling me what these women were supposedly saying prior to giving evidence, which does not align with what Emma has now said on oath. How do you explain that?"

"I also know these women were passing on confidential & privileged information to Nick as far back as mid-late 2020," the email continues.

"What are you going to do, when all of that comes out to the judge?"

She also claimed there had been a “behind the scenes corrupting of the process”.

"If you have to lie & cheat to win, then you shouldn’t be playing the game at all," she wrote.

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So, this witness claimed to Nine that she had relevant information to the court and, instead of dealing with the allegations, Nine paid this woman hush money.

There are questions now about whether the information should have been brought to the Court’s attention.

The unfiled statement of claim made by Person 17 also includes the allegation that McKenzie had obtained Roberts-Smith’s privileged legal strategy.

After we broadcast the recording in March, Nine demanded that Person 17 repay the $700,000 hush money and threatened to sue her - despite the fact she was Nine’s own witness who they claim was a victim of domestic violence.

The letter from Ms Alick accused Person 17, without proof, of leaking the audio recording to Roberts-Smith and Sky News.

It says: "The Nine Group request that your client refund the Settlement Sum in full within 14 days. If payment is not received by Monday, 7 April 2025 the Nine Group will commence legal proceedings against your client for payment of the debt under contract law.”

Person 17 sent a return legal letter rejecting the allegations Nine made and denying that she had leaked the audio recording.

Now, it’s not just the audio recording that leads Roberts-Smith and his legal team to believe that his privileged legal strategy was unlawfully accessed by Nine.

Telstra records show that his email account was accessed 101 times by his wife, Emma Roberts’ close friend, Danielle Scott.

Roberts-Smith says one email from his lawyer was ‘flagged’ and read when he opened his account.

His ex-wife Emma has admitted that she had allowed her close friend, Danielle, to access his email accounts, but claimed that it was only in relation to their marriage breakdown.

It has also emerged that Nine had access to emails about Person 17.

So we know his emails were accessed in relation to his marriage, in relation to P17 - and this raises the question whether they were accessed in relation to other areas of the case.

His attempts to prevent Emma Roberts from disclosing confidential information failed at the time of the trial. However, further examples emerged in court last week that Nine was being told in advance about aspects of the Roberts-Smith legal team’s strategy.

A text message from Danielle Scott to McKenzie made it clear she had information about what his lawyers were planning to do in advance.

"Heads up… MA (Monica Allen) is going to write to the CDPP and notify them that your tweet is a breach of the Family Law Act s121. They are also going to apply to the court for a restraint preventing any further publications of that nature being made," the message read.

"They are also going to make a second further application not to disclose any further material to the respondents from the family court."

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So that’s Danielle Scott tipping off Nick McKenzie that Ben Roberts-Smith’s lawyer Monica Allen was about to write to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions about his tweet.

Roberts-Smith’s lawyers had sent him an email that included this precise information.

Danielle followed it up with another text that said: "Always better to be on the front foot I say and know what they are planning :-)".

Then she wrote that McKenzie owed her two beers.

The Court heard last week about Roberts-Smith’s serious concerns and mounting evidence that his privileged information was unlawfully accessed by Nine.

Nine’s lawyers told the Court that no such information was provided to Nine.

Nine was warned about this allegation by Person 17 in several emails and legal letters and instead of dealing with this potential misconduct, they paid her $700,000 in hush money.

The payment was made in January 2024.

The chair of the Board, Catherine West, was a director at the time the payment was made.

I put questions to the Nine Board including asking what they knew about the Person 17 allegations and whether there has been any internal investigation about them.

Nine have not responded.

Adding to Nine’s arrogance is this comment McKenzie allegedly made to Person 17 - and included in the unfiled statement of claim.

When she was concerned whether she could trust McKenzie, given he wasn’t a member of the Fairfax Board, McKenzie allegedly said to her: "I am FAIRFAX”.

This entire matter looks like a financial cover-up to protect the reputation of one of their top journalists.

It’s concerning conduct, given the Roberts-Smith appeal was about to start.

And it’s a corporate minefield for the media company, not long after its reckoning over sexual harassment and its toxic culture.

As I've said before, if dirty tricks were used to bring down one of Australia’s most decorated soldiers, this is a matter that’s firmly in the public interest.

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Discussing the new revelations, special forces veteran Heston Russell suggested Nine had "a lot" of questions to answer over how its star reporter had behaved in the lead up to Ben Roberts-Smith's defamation trial.

"How are these journalists being allowed to conduct these actions in order to throw Australia's most decorated soldier under the bus and try and scrub all the rest of it under the table," he said.

"I think the Nine Board has a lot to answer to the Australian public."

Asked by Sharri what he would like to hear from Nine and McKenzie, Mr Russell suggested the broadcaster needed to explain how much it knew about the "hush money" payments and other "dirty" actions potentially taken in regard to Mr Roberts-Smith's case.

"I would just like to know if they were aware that all of this is occurring. I mean, there's $700,000 that's being paid," he said.

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"There's all these emails and exchanges, and instead of the truth being put forward in a case that's meant to be about the truth, there seems to have been steps taken to silence this person and not to face the facts of some of the dirty actions that have been taken."

Reflecting on his own experience litigating a defamation case against the ABC, Mr Russell added it appeared some media outlets were happy to sideline ethics when pursuing a story.

"My personal experience, what I'm seeing now with Ben, goes to show that there are elements of the Australian media who are happy to throw the rule book of ethics out the window when it comes to trying to pursue Australia's most decorated people who went to war and fought for this country and fought for these rights that we're meant to be defending in our courts," he said.