The award-winning journalist who broke the story of Alan Jones’s alleged indecent assaults against multiple men is set to testify against the broadcaster.
Kate McClymont first detailed allegations of inappropriate behaviour by the longtime shock jock in a December 2023 article, a year before his arrest at his Sydney harbourfront home.
On Tuesday, she entered the witness box in a NSW Local Court to give evidence about her investigation into Jones.
As she entered the courtroom, Jones kept his gaze straight ahead.
She was flanked by the Sydney Morning Herald editor Jordan Baker while Jones received support from controversial men's rights commentator Bettina Arndt, who greeted him warmly.
The court has been told McClymont has been linked to four of the five complainants who allege Jones indecently assaulted or sexually touched them without consent between 2003 and 2020.
A former radio staffer told the court McClymont called him months before she published her article and told him she was investigating allegations of indecent assaults by Jones.
He said they met in person and he disclosed being repeatedly groped and kissed by the talkback titan without consent, including while he was driving.
In a recording of their conversation previously played in court, the former radio staffer told McClymont he felt trapped by Jones’s unwelcome advances.
The staffer asked her to use a pseudonym in her article so he couldn’t be identified, he said.
"I didn’t want anyone knowing," the former radio staffer said.
"I didn’t want to be connected to this story."
A man's allegations of being indecently assaulted by Jones as a 17-year-old were similarly anonymised in McClymont’s reporting after his mother passed on his contact details.
He told the reporter he feared losing Jones’s financial support when the septuagenarian kissed him without consent at his NSW Southern Highlands home.
McClymont’s reporting prompted a famous athlete to go to police with his own claims of being indecently assaulted and sexually touched without consent by Jones years earlier.
Another complainant - an executive - reached out to the journalist about his own experience with Jones after reading her article, but insisted he hadn’t given her permission to write about it.
The executive told the court he hadn’t given McClymont permission to record their conversation and was upset when he saw anonymised allegations aired in a later article.
The claim is set to be tested and the journalist’s methods scrutinised during her testimony.
Jones, now 85, has pleaded not guilty to 21 charges of indecent assault and sexual touching without consent against the five complainants.
Jones’s barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC argued during her opening address that her client’s media rivals were involved in at least two of the allegations against him.
“Rivalry, treachery, double dealing, money, hatred, desperation, opportunism and more are at the heart of this case,” she declared in August.
The trial has so far featured testimony from prominent media figures such as Jones’s rival, former 2GB mornings host Ray Hadley, and McClymont’s stablemate Peter FitzSimons.
The trial, which has been running for three months, is set to conclude in December.
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