Court ends for the day
That’s it for day three of the Alan Jones trial. The hearing is expected to resume at 10am tomorrow, and we’ll be in court to cover developments.
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The interim non-publication order (NPO) over today’s hearing has continued all afternoon. Complainant J has been cross-examined by defence barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC under the interim order made by judge Glenn Walsh.
The court was already closed to the public during the complainants’ evidence, and their identity can’t be revealed.
The NPO means journalists can be present but can’t report the proceedings until Walsh lifts the order.
J has now been giving evidence for three days via video link.
At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, before the NPO, J agreed with Bashir that he asked Alan Jones for a character reference when he was charged with driving offences in 2005.
J earlier alleged he had been indecently assaulted by the veteran broadcaster on multiple occasions when he was a teenager.
During her opening statement, Bashir argued that the alleged victims had been egged on to complain by the broadcaster’s media rivals.
Jones has pleaded not guilty to 22 indecent assault and sexual touching charges involving six men.
Interim non-publication order made
Judge Glenn Walsh has placed an interim non-publication order on Gabrielle Bashir SC’s current line of questioning after a dispute over whether it was admissible.
Walsh said he was prepared to listen to arguments that may be later ruled inadmissible, given it’s a judge-only trial.
But that means we can’t report the evidence until we know if it’s admissible or not. So there’ll be a pause in posts for now.
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I’m in court now with Amanda Meade to follow all the developments on day three.
The trial was expected to resume at 10am, however, the court is dealing with media applications before it returns to complainant J’s cross-examination.
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Just a heads our posts may be a bit slower today as we head into the defence team’s interrogation of J’s allegations.
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Warning: This post contains graphic content.
On the first two days of the trial, complainant J gave his evidence in chief, walking through the nine occasions the prosecution alleges Alan Jones indecently assaulted him.
Before we jump into the cross-examination of that evidence by Jones’s legal team, here is a summary of what has been alleged:
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Jones first met complainant J when he was 14 years old and a star school athlete and “praised” his sports ability.
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J alleged that Jones had made a weekly deposit of $400 a week into his bank account and told him he didn’t have to tell anyone because it was a gift.
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J alleged the payments, which eventually increased to $600 a week, lasted for almost a decade until 2012. That year, he received a letter from Jones’s company saying he had received $110,000 in total.
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J alleged that he was asked to drive Jones to a function in Canberra when he was 17 and, while the pair were alone in the hotel room, Jones allegedly kissed him in a “smothering” way.
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J alleged that after the Canberra encounter Jones told him he had “been a really good boy” and increased his weekly stipend.
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J told the court he didn’t tell his coach about an alleged incident because he “felt I’d lose everything” and said he had “come from a small family” and “was getting everything handed” to him, and it was a “wonderful life”.
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J alleged that one of the indecent assault incidents occurred while he was driving Jones to his Fitzroy Falls farm and Jones had grabbed his penis over his pants and then under his underpants.
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He alleged two further incidents happened at the property, including one where Jones allegedly told him to “go and have a shower and come out wearing a robe and nothing else”. A second alleged incident occurred after Jones came into his bedroom, J told the court.
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J told the court that a “tactic” he used to try to avoid Jones’s alleged assaults was to bring up the girlfriend he had at the time.
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J said that he went to Jones’s apartment at one point with the intention to “stand up” to him but he didn’t, and it still upsets him.
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J told the court that he had disclosed the alleged indecent assaults to his then girlfriend and she had told him he had to tell someone.
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J said he had disclosed the alleged assaults to police after he saw on the news that Jones had been arrested on other allegations. He said he had come forward because “I’m a father now and I’m a proud father and I want to teach my [child] right from wrong and what he was doing was wrong”.
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Alan Jones has arrived at the court. He was swarmed by a large press pack as he exited his car and walked into the Downing Centre.
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The trial is expected to resume at 10am. If you need to catch up on what happened yesterday, you can read our news wrap below.
A student athlete who received more than $110,000 from Alan Jones over a decade has told a Sydney court he reported indecent assaults to police after the broadcaster was arrested in 2024 because he wanted his child to know ‘right from wrong’.
‘I feel like I’m here because of being unable to say no,’ the man, known as complainant J, told Downing Centre local court on Tuesday.
The alleged victim, who met Jones when he was 14, said he was ‘disappointed’ in himself for failing to stand up to Jones and the alleged abuse.
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Welcome
Welcome to day three of the Alan Jones indecent assault trial. I’m Jordyn Beazley and once again I’ll be bringing you all of the developments from inside courtroom 3.1 at Sydney’s Downing Centre local court. I’m here alongside my colleague Amanda Meade.
Today at 10am, we are expecting complainant J to be back in court via video link where it’s expected that the defence barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC will continue her cross-examination.
Yesterday afternoon, Bashir questioned J over whether he had read in the Sydney Morning Herald that a 17-year-old schoolboy had alleged he was indecently assaulted by Jones, ahead of making his own report. He denied that he had.
J told the court yesterday that he received a letter from Jones’s company in 2012 stating he had received $110,000 after he was paid a fortnightly stipend from the broadcaster for nearly a decade.
Complainant J detailed to the court an alleged incident at Fitzroy Falls where Jones told him to “go and have a shower and come out wearing a robe and nothing else”. He outlined a second alleged incident on the same evening after Jones came into his bedroom.
On Monday, J alleged that Jones kissed him on the mouth at the broadcaster’s Sydney apartment without consent, and J didn’t kiss Jones back but “froze”.
Jones has pleaded not guilty to 22 indecent assault and sexual touching charges. Bashir on Monday argued that the alleged victims had been egged on to complain by the broadcaster’s media rivals.
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