Ben Roberts-Smith intends to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral
Controversial soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has revealed he plans to travel to London to take part in official commemorations for Queen Elizabeth II, due to his status as a Victoria Cross recipient.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, government sources said winners of the medal from several Commonwealth countries have been invited to participate in an order of chivalry procession during the Queen’s funeral on September 19.
Mark Donaldson, an Afghanistan war veteran who received the Victoria Cross in 2009, is expected to represent recipients of the Australian Victoria Cross and George Cross in the procession and will see the Queen lying in state.
Fellow Victoria Cross recipients Daniel Keighran and Keith Payne, veterans of the Afghanistan and Vietnam wars respectively, are also expected to attend if possible.
Payne, the last living recipient of the original “Imperial” Victoria Cross, told the Courier Mail that he hoped to travel to London for the funeral but would need to pass a physical exam first.
A spokeswoman for Mr Roberts-Smith confirmed the SAS soldier was invited to participate, and she believed he would travel to the event.
In a statement he shared with the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, Mr Roberts-Smith said he was “deeply saddened” by the Queen’s passing, describing her as “a stoic leader” and “a lovely lady”.
“I feel deeply saddened by Her Majesty’s passing, I had an immense respect for her and she was someone I admired greatly. In every interaction I had with the Queen she was warm, insightful and engaging,“ Mr Roberts-Smith said.
“She was a magnificent monarch, a stoic leader, and importantly just a lovely lady. I feel extremely honoured to be fortunate enough to pay my respects to the Queen and humbled that she saw fit to include the Victoria Cross recipients in her funeral procession.”
Mr Roberts-Smith was pictured meeting with the Queen in 2011, telling reporters at the time that they mostly talked about Afghanistan and what he and his patrol did.
“We talked mainly about Afghanistan and obviously a great opportunity for me to tell her about what everyone else in my (patrol) did that day, so I got to explain to her a bit of what everyone did as opposed to just myself,” he told reporters after the meeting.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s invite comes as he awaits the outcome of his high-profile defamation case against Nine newspapers over reports where he alleges he was wrongly portrayed as a war criminal and murderer.
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