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ABC News
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- ABC News
Father and son join forces to restore vintage 1928 Model A Ford for Red Dust Revival
The term R&R means something different to old soldiers like Ray "Chick" Dimmack. "In the army it was rest and relaxation," the Vietnam veteran said, pointing to the letters R&R painted on the side of a restored 1928 Model A Ford. A panel beater before joining the army, the 83-year-old has passed his love of cars onto his only son and namesake. Chick, who said the nickname had stuck with him since the 1950s, lives in Mandurah, and 660 kilometres away is his Kalgoorlie-based son, 46-year-old Ray Junior. They have spent the past three years painstakingly restoring the vintage car after spotting a rusted chassis advertised online. "This was rusted to buggery … it's been a labour of love I suppose you'd call it," the elder statesman said. "He's done most of the work. I've sourced parts and been up and down from Perth. "Every now and then I'd spend a week here. My back would be hurting by the time I got in the car to go home, but I was happy, a few beers with the son, you couldn't ask for anything more." A former sergeant in the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR), where he spent most of his 20 years' army service until breaking a leg in a parachute accident, Chick Dimmack is more at home on a motorbike than in a car. While determined to keep riding, Father Time is catching up with him, along with some health issues following a triple bypass heart operation. "He's a bit of a hard ass … a couple of years ago for his 80th birthday we went around Australia on two motorbikes and that was an experience," Ray Junior said. "But nothing deters him — if he wants to go do something, he'll go do it." Chick said the restoration had given him valuable time with his son. "I was away a lot with the army in his younger days, so this has been a great project for us to do together," he said. It wasn't without its challenges, including building a new engine from scratch. "It's been challenging because I've never done anything like this, but once you get stuck into it, it's really interesting and it's been a labour of love," Ray Junior said. The duo's hard work paid off this past week when they took the car to a nearby bush track for its first test drive. Despite a few teething issues, the car is on track to relive its glory days at the upcoming Red Dust Revival, which has been held in 2014, 2019 and 2022. About 130 vintage cars have registered for the event, which re-enacts races held a century ago at Lake Perkolilli near the WA gold mining city of Kalgooorlie-Boulder. Between 1914 and 1939, thousands of people attended annual race meets with the lake's hard, smooth surface allowing drivers to reach speeds of 200 kilometres an hour in a time before quality roads. "The first car to arrive on the Goldfields was in 1905 and that was imported from Europe," Kalgoorlie-Boulder historian Tim Moore said. "Soon after that, they had street racing in Boulder, but Lake Perkolilli was perfect because it was flat and they could let loose. But World War II put an end to the legendary races as fuel and men became scarce. The Dimmacks have been mainstays of the revival event, which this year will run from September 29 to October 5. "I've been following Dad out to Lake Perkolilli since 2014 and I noticed he was getting a bit ginger at the end of each day, so I put the suggestion forward about getting into a car," Ray Junior said. "I wanted to be a bit mindful of the safety for him, so he can enjoy the event and not be in pain at the end of the day … but he's told me he's still going to bring out one of his old bikes." Henry Ford famously said of his 1908 Model T, "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it's black". Instead, the Dimmacks have chosen a brighter colour scheme in honour of the Lake Perkolilli dust. "Everything about this car is 1928, except the paint colour," Chick said, adding the colour was used on commercial trucks by Ford in the 1930s. Ray Junior added "I said, 'Why don't we do something different and really loud?' According to Ford Motor Company, more than five million Model As came off the company's assembly line between 1927 and 1931. At its peak in 1929, Ford was producing 9,000 Model As a day. While it still used a four-cylinder engine, similar to its predecessor the Model T, the Model A was more powerful and capable of up to 65 miles an hour. The Dimmacks hope to give that mark a nudge at the Red Dust Revival. "We'll go fast, but I won't go crazy fast … I leave that for my motorbikes," Chick said. "These wrecks in the backyards are now being brought back to life, and that's what it's all about."
The Age
21-05-2025
- The Age
Ben Roberts-Smith: OSI uncovers new war crimes evidence, secures fresh witnesses
During his opening remarks at the start of the case, Roberts-Smith's barrister, Bruce McClintock, told the court: 'My client did not drink from the leg. The respondents have been desperately trying to find evidence that he did, but he never did.' When he was directly asked in court during cross-examination: 'Did you yourself drink from the leg?' , Roberts-Smith replied: 'No, I didn't.' However, the video uncovered by the OSI shows the disgraced soldier being passed the prosthetic leg before sculling from it during a party at the Fat Lady's Arms. Ben Roberts-Smith (left) with a former colleague drinking from the prosthetic leg of a dead Afghan man in 2012. On Tuesday, the full bench of the Federal Court released their judgment, explaining why they upheld Justice Besanko's 2023 decision that Roberts-Smith was complicit in the murder of four unarmed prisoners, including the man with the prosthetic leg, while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. Federal Court justices Nye Perram, Anna Katzmann and Geoffrey Kennett found the evidence was sufficiently cogent to conclude that Roberts-Smith was a war criminal who had disgraced his country and the SASR, including by having machine-gunned the unarmed prisoner with a prosthetic leg outside Whiskey 108. The three senior judges said the latter finding was based on the compelling testimony of three of Roberts-Smith's fellow SASR soldiers. Loading 'The problem for [Roberts-Smith] is that, unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses to this murder,' the three judges concluded. 'When all is said and done, it is a rare murder that is witnessed by three independent witnesses. This strength of this evidence cannot be erased, and is in no way undermined, by peripheral inconsistencies.' The appeal court also said that 'the killing of the man with the prosthetic leg in such a dramatic fashion does suggest a certain recklessness or perhaps even brazenness' on Roberts-Smith's part. While Roberts-Smith still denies wrongdoing, and has vowed to continue his legal fight to clear his name by challenging the four judges' findings in the High Court, the revelation the OSI has also secured the co-operation of witnesses who did not testify in the defamation trial, or gave only limited testimony, is a blow to the disgraced ex-soldier and former Seven West Media executive. The OSI is staffed with elite detectives from state police forces, including handpicked homicide investigators. Sources said its inquiries had proceeded far more slowly than the agency had hoped, but this was due to a painstakingly exhaustive and risk-averse approach adopted by OSI chief, former top prosecutor and judge Mark Weinberg. Weinberg has sought to avoid the legal pitfalls that led to the abandonment in 2021 of an earlier federal police war crimes investigation targeting Roberts-Smith. The OSI is working with the AFP to target Roberts-Smith and has secured more evidence and witness co-operation than the stymied federal police probe. The OSI probe is not only aimed at seeking to prosecute Roberts-Smith but several of his accomplices who, like the disgraced war hero, were also found to have lied during the defamation proceedings to cover up war crimes. Loading Billionaire Gina Rinehart emerged this week as Roberts-Smith's latest mega-wealthy public supporter, describing him as 'brave and patriotic' and claiming the reporting of his actions in Afghanistan as weakening the defence forces. Her statement has angered SASR veterans who believe the mining magnate's defence of the war criminal is misguided and offensive to Australian veterans who repeatedly deployed to Afghanistan and are against the execution of civilians and prisoners. 'If Rinehart has read the full court's judgment, she must know it was other regiment blokes that are the ones that have stood up against his [Roberts-Smith's] crimes. There is nothing honourable about kicking an Afghan farmer off a cliff,' one SASR insider who served alongside Roberts-Smith said. A second SASR insider who also served in Afghanistan said he believed Rinehart's advocacy was at odds with 'the views of most Australians who don't want their soldiers executing civilians or prisoners'. 'We don't do that,' the SASR veteran said, claiming that Roberts-Smith's decision to spend millions of dollars on defamation proceedings had brought untold 'trauma' for soldiers subsequently caught up in his legal fight. Rinehart has refused to say if she is funding Roberts-Smith's ongoing legal battles, with his former employer, Channel Seven owner Kerry Stokes, no longer footing the war criminal's bill. Rinehart was approached for comment.
ABC News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case appeal dismissal judgment released by Federal Court
The Federal Court has published its reasons for dismissing war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith's bid to overturn his defamation loss, which found the Victoria Cross recipient complicit in war crimes while deployed to Afghanistan. The former Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) corporal launched an appeal after losing his defamation case against three Nine-owned newspapers following a civil trial, which ran for more than 100 days over 2021 and 2022. Mr Roberts-Smith's appeal, which was heard in February last year, was unanimously thrown out by the full bench of the Federal Court on Friday. Federal Court Justices Geoffrey Kennett, Nye Perram and Anna Katzmann found "the evidence was sufficiently cogent to support the findings that the appellant [Mr Roberts-Smith] murdered four Afghan men". The publication of the court's reasons for its decision was briefly delayed to give the Commonwealth the opportunity to redact any evidence that may present national security concerns. "In a long, careful and clear judgment the primary judge [Justice Anthony Besanko] correctly identified and applied the relevant legal principles and paid close attention to the serious nature of the allegations and the standard of proof," the judgment read. "His Honour repeatedly reminded himself that the respondents bore the onus of proving the substantial truth of the imputations and of the cogency of the evidence necessary to discharge it." One of the allegations against Mr Roberts-Smith, which was found to be substantially true to a civil standard, was that the soldier committed murder by machine gunning an Afghan man with a prosthetic leg outside a compound during a mission on Easter Sunday in 2009. In its appeal judgment, the court characterised the unlawful killing as "dramatic" and suggested a sense of "brazenness" on Mr Roberts-Smiths part considering the presence of three witnesses. "The killing of the man with the prosthetic leg in such a dramatic fashion does suggest a certain recklessness or perhaps even brazenness on the part of the appellant," the Federal Court found. "The problem for the appellant is that, unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses to this murder." "The appellant's efforts to construct uncertainty out of inconsistencies in peripheral detail are unpersuasive." The full bench also upheld the allegation against Mr Roberts-Smith that during the same mission, he authorised the execution of an unarmed Afghan by a junior trooper in his patrol as an act of "blooding the rookie". "For completeness, we are satisfied that the evidence concerning the blooding the rookie allegation was not only cogently, but in fact powerfully, probative that the appellant and Person 5 had succeeded in having Person 4 kill someone and this is so taking into account the seriousness of the allegation and the presumption of innocence," the judgment read. The court also rejected Mr Roberts-Smith's claim that Justice Besanko failed to give weight to his presumption of innocence. "These were no mere ritualistic incantations, as the appellant suggested," the judgment read. "It is apparent that His Honour was acutely conscious of the seriousness of the findings the respondents called upon him to make and of the necessity that he be reasonably satisfied that the imputations were substantially true without resorting to inexact proofs, indefinite testimony or indirect inferences." Mr Roberts-Smith indicated on Friday that he would immediately seek a High Court challenge to the Federal Court's dismissal of his appeal and application to reopen the matter with the inclusion of new evidence.
Epoch Times
20-05-2025
- Epoch Times
Ben Roberts-Smith to Appeal to High Court Over War Crimes Reporting Saga
A seven-year legal battle between publisher Nine, two of its journalists, and decorated war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith will continue after he said he would be taking the case to the High Court. The Federal Court had earlier upheld a decision that found Roberts-Smith was responsible for the murder of four unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. Roberts-Smith rose to prominence in 2011 after being awarded Australia's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, for single-handedly taking out machine-gun posts to protect pinned-down colleagues. In 2015, he was appointed deputy general manager of the regional television network Seven Queensland and later, general manager of Seven Brisbane. The Case Against Roberts-Smith But two years later, a newspaper owned by media company Nine Entertainment reported that in 2006, he decided to hunt down and shoot 'enemies' that he presumed had spotted his patrol. That led to two further investigations into his conduct by media outlets. In June 2018, a joint ABC–Fairfax investigation reported an incident in Yemen during which a handcuffed man was kicked off a cliff, then dragged to a creek, and executed on Sept. 11, 2012. Related Stories 1/8/2025 4/11/2025 Then, in June 2023, the ABC reported allegations that Roberts-Smith directed another Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) soldier to kill an elderly imam during an August 2012 operation in Afghanistan. In August 2018, Roberts-Smith commenced defamation proceedings against Nine Entertainment publications and journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters over the initial reporting of his actions. But in 2023, after a lengthy civil trial, Justice Anthony Besanko found the newspapers had successfully proved—to the civil standard of the balance of probabilities—that Roberts-Smith was complicit in the murder of four unarmed civilians while serving in the SAS in Afghanistan, as well as bullying and threatening colleagues and intimidating a woman with whom he was having an affair. Due to the gravity of the allegations, Justice Besanko followed the Australian Army soldiers from the 5th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment at the range in Camp Qargha, Afghanistan. Courtesy Australian Defence Force. The judge also found that the former SASR corporal machine-gunned a man with a prosthetic leg, which he then encouraged soldiers to use as a drinking vessel, and that, on the same day in 2009, he also ordered the execution of an elderly prisoner to 'blood the rookie' during a raid on a compound known as Whiskey 108. Having already stepped down from his role at Seven West Media in 2021, Roberts-Smith then resigned. However, the company's chairman, Kerry Stokes, agreed to pay the costs of the failed action, estimated then at $35 million, in a move that meant the network avoided having to hand over thousands of internal documents about the case. Besanko, describing the move as 'unusual,' ordered that Stokes' private company, Australian Capital Equity (ACE), pay the costs on an indemnity basis. Roberts-Smith appealed to the Full Court of the Federal Court, comprising three judges, in February 2024. The Result More than a year later, they have handed down their decision: the original decision stands. That means Roberts-Smith, who was not present in court to hear the decision, remains liable for costs, which now include those of his failed appeal. He could, however, opt to ask for leave to take the matter to the High Court in a last-ditch attempt to clear his name. Despite the finding of Justice Besanko in a civil court, Roberts-Smith has never been tried over the allegations in a criminal court. In November 2018, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) announced that they 'received a referral to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by Australian soldiers during the Afghanistan conflict,' and in April 2021, confirmed that they were also looking into reports that he had destroyed or hidden evidence relating to the investigation, which lasted five years. However, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) later decided that the original AFP investigation could not support a prosecution because it would depend in part on information received from the Brereton inquiry. That was an investigation by the Inspector General of the Defence Force into the conduct of Australian forces in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. But because the Inspector-General can use special coercive powers to question serving members of the ADF, the testimony obtained would be inadmissible in a civilian court. 1st Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR) personnel in Kabul as part of Task Group Afghanistan's Force Protection Element (FPE). Courtesy Australian Defence Force. Their mission was to protect Australian and Coalition forces as they train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces. FPE 14 operated from the Hamid Karzai International Airport. Note: It is not implied that any of the soldiers pictured were involved in war crimes. Photo courtesy Australian Defence Force. A total of 39 soldiers were implicated in the Brereton report, but Roberts-Smith is the only one to have been named, due to the Inspector General's decision to take the unusual step of making him the subject of what was termed an 'exceptional' referral to the AFP before having concluded the inquiry. The CDPP's decision not to prosecute led to the establishment of a new joint task force, with personnel from the Office of the Special Investigator and a new team of AFP investigators to examine the allegations, but to date, no charges have been laid, and In June 2023, Roberts-Smith was asked by reporters at Perth airport whether he would be apologising to the families of the victims affected by his actions in Afghanistan. He replied, 'We haven't done anything wrong, so we won't be making any apologies,' and called Justice Besanko's finding that he had probably committed war crimes 'a terrible result and obviously the incorrect result.'
ABC News
16-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Ben Roberts-Smith's appeal has been dismissed, but the legal saga isn't over
Decorated war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith's bid to overturn a defamation ruling that found on the balance of probabilities he was complicit in war crimes has been dealt a considerable blow. Lawyers for the former Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) corporal and Victoria Cross recipient will likely spend the coming days poring over the reasons for the dismissal of his appeal by the full court of the Federal Court to overturn his defamation case loss against three Nine newspapers. Mr Roberts-Smith originally sued over a series of articles published in 2018 with allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, bullying and domestic violence against a woman in Canberra. The appeal was heard in February last year after his multi-million-dollar defamation case against three Nine-owned newspapers was dismissed by Justice Anthony Besanko in 2023, who found him complicit in war crimes on the balance of probabilities. The alleged domestic violence was found to be not sufficiently supported by evidence, but the court ruled any reputational harm fell away in the context of the overall decision. In the appeal, Mr Roberts-Smith's legal team argued Justice Besanko made several legal errors, including incomplete fact-finding, insufficient reasoning and arbitrary conclusions about witness reliability. The former SASR corporal also had an application to reopen the appeal with the inclusion of new evidence dismissed by the full bench of the Federal Court. The articles at the centre of the long-running legal saga were published about seven years ago, and after countless hours of court hearings, one thing is clear: It's not over yet. In a statement, Mr Roberts-Smith said while he accepted the decision of the Federal Court, he would seek to challenge it in the High Court, the apex court of the Australian legal system. "I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious, spiteful allegations. We will immediately seek to challenge this judgment in the High Court of Australia." Mr Roberts-Smith said. Former president of the Australian Bar Association, Melbourne barrister, and defamation expert Matt Collins, KC, said it was not a surprising result. "It was a 10-day appeal, which is an unusually long appeal in which the central issues concerned findings of fact, and it is notoriously difficult for an unsuccessful party at a trial to persuade an appeal court to reverse findings of fact," he said. Dr Collins said seeking leave to appeal to the High Court was very difficult. "In the High Court, only about 15 per cent of persons seeking leave to appeal in cases of this kind get leave, so it is very much a long shot." He said each case was different. "The High Court in some circumstances will review findings of fact to see whether something has gone wrong in the way in which the judge at the trial and then the Full Court made its findings of fact," Dr Collins said. "But as a general rule, it is harder to overturn findings of fact than it is to identify and then have corrected errors of law." More about the Federal Court appeal is expected within days. Given the national security elements relating to some of the case, the court's reasons for its decision have not been published yet. The court has determined parts of it will never be released due to national security concerns. And as for the rest, the Commonwealth has been given until Tuesday next week to review it and decide if more needs to be redacted before the justices reveal more about the reasons for their judgment. However, in an executive summary released by the justices ahead of a judgment said Mr Roberts-Smith's appeal canvassed "various matters … which he contends disclose discrete errors". "Having carefully considered all these matters, we are unanimously of the opinion that the evidence was sufficiently cogent to support the findings that the appellant murdered four Afghan men and to the extent that we have discerned error in the reasons of the primary judge, the errors were inconsequential," the justices wrote. During Friday's decision, the Federal Court justices ordered Mr Roberts-Smith to pay costs for the appeal. Rick Sarre, an emeritus professor of law and criminal justice at the University of South Australia, said the issues of appeal costs would be in the "millions". "We're talking millions of dollars — whether we get to 10 or 12 or 13 million dollars will be a matter for the judges to determine," Professor Sarre said. "I dare say we won't know what the final cost is for another month or two. Typically, in these matters one side will put in its costs and typically if they're not agreed immediately it goes for a judge to consider." Dr Collins also agreed the costs would be in the millions, adding, "It is a bit, 'How long is a piece of string?" After the initial defamation trial, Mr Roberts-Smith was ordered to pay indemnity costs for the entirety of his failed case against Nine. Indemnity costs compensate the successful party to a higher level than what a court would more commonly order after a legal case. Seven West Media chair and billionaire Kerry Stokes, who financially supported the war veteran, was also ordered to pay a high percentage of the legal bill to the newspapers. "Reportedly the costs of this trial went into the tens of millions of dollars — there are very few players in Australia with pockets deep enough to be able to defend investigative journalists," Dr Collins said. Dr Collins believed the case would "act as a sobering message to those thinking on taking on legacy media players" for defamation in public interest cases. Professor Sarre added: "The original trial went for something like 100 days and the appeal went for around 10 days, so if you're talking about some of the best QCs [barristers] charging [thousands] a day even just for their appearances in court then you can imagine the costs are going up considerably. "This has been a very expensive exercise for Kerry Stokes."
