CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses sexual assault.
Former radio broadcaster Alan Jones has been charged with a total of 24 offences against eight alleged victims after an investigation of a number of alleged indecent assaults and sexual touching incidents over the last two decades.
The 83-year-old was arrested early Monday morning from his Circular Quay apartment in Sydney. He was taken to Day Street Police Station in central Sydney where he was charged with 11 counts of aggravated indecent assault — victim under the authority of offender, nine counts of assault with an act of indecency, two counts of sexually touch another person without consent and two counts of common assault.
Jones has previously denied all allegations against him.
Jones has been granted conditional bail and is set to appear before Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday, December 18.
In a press conference, Police Commissioner Karen Webb said that the arrest comes after a “long, thorough, protracted” investigation.
“I did visit the strike force some weeks and months ago,” she said.
“It is very complex and protracted and I know that those officers have been working tirelessly.”
NSW Premier Chris Minns refused to comment on Jones’ arrest.
“We need to let police conduct this inquiry free of commentary from me and others,” he said.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the arrest of the former Wallabies coach comes after a nine-month secret investigation by detectives from Strike Force Bonnefin — part of the State Crime Command’s Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad — in which they’d been investigating numerous indecent assault and sexual touching incidents between 2001 and 2019.
The investigation came after newspapers The Herald and The Age reported the allegations against Jones in December last year.
The Herald alleged that inappropriate behaviour had been occurring for almost 60 years.
The allegations against Jones’ go as far back as 1965 when he was a teacher and cricket coach at Brisbane Grammar School. One of his former students alleges that Jones put his hands down his pants and squeezed his testicles for “maybe 30 seconds to a minute”.
A similar allegation occurred from his time at The Kings School in Sydney where a student also alleged that Jones put his hands down his shorts.
Jones is alleged to have indecently assaulted multiple young men during his 25 year career at 2GB radio station, the Herald reported last year.
One man, using the pseudonym Brad Webster, said Jones would assault him as he drove the broadcaster to work.
“If I went to the police, Jones could be charged,” he told the paper. “What he did to me was a criminal offence. He cannot die without people knowing what he’s done.”
He said he didn’t speak out at the time due to fear of repercussions.
“Jones was more powerful than the prime minister,” he said. “He could pick up the phone to John Howard and demand for things to be done.”
These are just a few of the allegations from the Herald’s report.
In 2023, Jones vehemently denied all allegations against him and threatened to take legal action.
“Over many years, certain journalists employed by Nine (formerly Fairfax) newspapers have been resentful of our client’s prominence as a commentator on many political and cultural issues, and the malicious and concocted allegations giving rise to the imputations constitute a concerted attempt to destroy our client’s reputation,” his lawyer Mark O’Brien alleged.
In a video released in March, Jones referred to the allegations as a “get-Jones campaign”.
“The get-Jones campaign is nothing new in my life,” he said. “I am not going to dwell, here, on the allegations made about me other than to say that I refute them entirely and the inferences associated with them.”
Jones previously denied the allegations.
Image credit: Nine.
Help is available.
- If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
- If you’d like to speak to someone about sexual violence, please call the 1800 Respect hotline on 1800 737 732 or chat online.
- Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
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