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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Business
Amanda Meade Media correspondent

Alan Jones welcomed prominent athlete to luxury home with ‘hug and slap on the bottom’, former butler tells court

Former radio broadcaster Alan Jones arrives at the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney, Tuesday, September 22, 2026
The trial of former radio broadcaster Alan Jones (centre) is in its eighth week. Photograph: Sarah Wilson/AAP

The man who was Alan Jones’s butler for almost two decades has told a Sydney court his boss would welcome a prominent athlete to his luxury harbourside apartment with “a hug and a slap on the bottom” and would call him “champion”.

The butler, David Allan, testified in the Downing Centre local court that he worked at “the coalface” of the broadcaster’s domestic life as a household manager for 18 and a half years up until August 2019. He cooked, cleaned and ironed everything including his underpants and socks, while his employer “tried to exist on 2.5 hours [sleep] a day”.

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