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A former Alan Jones staffer has told a court he confided in friends that the former broadcaster was “a grub” who had touched him inappropriately before he spoke to prominent media identities Ray Hadley and Peter FitzSimons.
Complainant “C”, the second of six men to give evidence in Jones’ indecent assault and sexual touching trial, told the NSW Local Court in Sydney on Monday that he “broke down sobbing” when he told Hadley about the alleged incidents of unwanted kissing and touching.
“C” said he had revealed the alleged assaults to then-2GB host Hadley after learning FitzSimons, an author, journalist and Sydney Morning Herald columnist, was researching a story on similar allegations against Jones.
“I said, ‘You know we joke a bit about it, but you know some of the stuff [Jones] did to me was quite f—ed up’,” he told the court.
He agreed to speak to FitzSimons, “C” said, but not to tell his own account publicly.
“The purpose of my conversation with Peter was to just let him know it’s true … [or] at the very least it happened to me,” he said.
He broke down when Hadley asked if he was OK after he spoke to FitzSimons, he said.
“I said, ‘He’s a f—ing grub, he used to grab me on my c—, used to kiss me in the lift’,” he said.
“Ray just listened. I just broke down sobbing. I said, ‘He’s a f–ing c—’.”
The man said he thought about his family, and it had hit home that he had never spoken about his experience in detail other than in an “off the cuff conversation”.
“It was the first time I’d ever broken down talking about it, and Ray just listened,” he said.
“He offered to go with me to the police and I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do anything like that’.”
“C” said Hadley agreed not to tell anyone else and suggested he speak to a psychologist.
‘C’ spoke to top Herald reporter
The complainant said the Herald’s chief investigative reporter, Kate McClymont, subsequently emailed him, and they met at a later date. Ultimately, he agreed she could report on his allegations by giving him a pseudonym, he told the court.
Asked why he did not want her to use his real name, “C” said he did not want to be connected to the story.
“A lot of this stuff was deeply embarrassing from a reputation point of view,” he said.
“Putting my family through it was just not something I wanted to be identified with.”
Earlier on Monday, “C” told the court he had received mixed responses when he told friends and a colleague about the alleged assaults. He said he had told close friends Jones was “a grub” who “used to grab me on the c—.”
He said some of his friends “would make jokes about what I told them Alan did to me” and this was how his wife would “hear things, but she never asked me about what happened”.
A colleague had asked him to leverage his relationship with Jones to help them with a work project, he said, and when he told her he hoped Jones would help because he “used to grope me”, she laughed and said “you can call him and sort it out”.
“C” said he also made a disclosure to his father-in-law.
“We were discussing the #MeToo movement in the news and I recall him making a comment about people coming forward making claims against high-profile people for money … to make a name for themselves,” he said.
“C” said comments like this discouraged him from saying what happened to him.
“I said, ‘now’s probably a good time to tell you, this is what Alan Jones did to me’ … [he] used to kiss me and grab me on [the] penis.”
He said his father-in-law expressed immediate sympathy and said, “I’m so sorry”.
Jones, 85, is standing trial on 20 charges of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching without consent relating to six male complainants between 2003 and 2020. The former 2GB host denies the allegations.
Of the 22 charges, eight indecent assault charges relate to “C”. Five of those charges involve allegations of unwanted kissing in lifts, and three charges involve alleged unwanted touching. One of the alleged incidents of touching occurred at a lunch on Sydney’s lower north shore where it was witnessed by other guests, “C” has told the court.
“C” was shown text messages on Monday in which he agreed he responded in a flirtatious way to Jones’ comments.
The court heard that in one message Jones referred to the complainant’s penis and “C” responded saying: “Haha, the c— is our secret, I don’t want to make people jealous.”
Asked by prosecutor Georgina Wright, SC, why he wrote this, he said he was trying to defuse Jones’ initial message.
“[It was] to curry favour,” the man said. “As I said, and I’ll say it again, I hate reading these messages.”
Complainant grilled over texts
At the beginning of her cross-examination, Jones’ barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC, asked “C” if he was flirting with Jones because the alleged indecent assaults had never happened.
“I was flirting with him because he was the most powerful person in Australia,” he answered.
He said there were many similar messages “but that doesn’t change what he did to me”.
Bashir asked about a text in which “C” said to Jones: “Miss your hugs, love always xx.”
He agreed that he was raising physical contact with Jones but said that “this is how you had to engage with him over many years”.
“C” told the court he felt “physically sick” reading his response to another text, in which Jones asked an intimate question about the complainant’s penis. He maintained it was how he had to engage with Jones to “keep him at bay”.
The trial continues.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
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