A former radio staffer denies making an indecent assault allegation against Alan Jones to benefit the talkback titan’s colleague Ray Hadley.
The man alleges Jones repeatedly kissed him without consent in a lift at his home and workplace and groped him in a car and at an event over a five-month period when they worked together.
Jones, now 85, has pleaded not guilty to 22 charges of indecent assault and sexual touching without consent against six men between 2003 and 2023 in Sydney and the NSW Southern Highlands.
The former radio staffer previously told the court he disclosed alleged indecent assaults to 2GB radio host Ray Hadley years after.
Sworn to secrecy, Hadley put him in touch with journalist Peter FitzSimons, who was researching similar allegations about Jones, the court was told.
Under cross-examination, the former radio staffer accepted Jones was under pressure at 2GB at the time he made the complaint.
The conservative commentator was the subject of a social media campaign targeting advertisers for “something stupid” he said online, the staffer said.
The former Wallabies coach had recently re-signed as the host of 2GB's influential and high-rating breakfast slot.
The former radio staffer denied knowing Hadley coveted the slot and said he didn't recall Hadley saying he was unhappy with that announcement.
“I know they didn’t like each other but they weren’t rivals,” he told the court.
He later described tensions between the prominent broadcasters as “beef”.
In her opening statement, Jones's barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC suggested the former radio staffer had been encouraged by Hadley to make a complaint against Jones to "destroy" his rival.
But the former radio staffer denied coming forward to benefit Hadley.
He emphasised he withheld any identifying information when speaking to FitzSimons and told the journalist he didn’t want to speak publicly.
“If I wanted to damage (Jones) in any way, wouldn’t I want (my allegations) to be made public?” he asked.
He said he spoke to FitzSimons to ensure he knew there was truth to the claims he was investigating.
Hadley and FitzSimons are expected to enter the witness box at some stage after the former radio staffer completes his testimony.
During an at-times tense and much-interrupted morning, the former staffer denied rehearsing his account when making a complaint to another colleague.
“You don’t have to rehearse the truth,” he said.
He told the court he had been groomed by Jones to text him in an intimate and fawning manner, heatedly dismissing Ms Bashir’s suggestions that grooming happens to children.
“Grooming is a secretive behaviour (that) makes you feel you need to behave in a certain way and you were taught to act in a certain way,” the former staffer said.
“That used to happen because he used to touch me on the penis.”
He had been a young man and Jones was four decades his senior, he said.
When he sent a message thanking Jones for his “tremendous generosity” upon his 2020 retirement from radio, the former radio staffer said it was a way of paying tribute to the veteran broadcaster.
“He was still a very, very powerful person,” he said.
"If I didn't, it would have blown back on me at some point in the future that I was ungrateful."
Ms Bashir has accused the former radio staffer of rewriting his history with Jones.
Jones has denied all of the alleged indecent assaults, which are alleged to have occurred during the latter part of his 35-year broadcasting career, when he dominated Sydney’s airwaves.
None of the charges allege grooming.
Jones also broadcast to a national audience for years as a regular commentator on Nine’s Today show and a host of a political discussion show on Sky News.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
