Alan Jones allegedly groomed a junior staffer at 2GB for a decade, resulting in the young man sending multiple explicit texts to the broadcaster, a Sydney court has heard.
As a young man, Complainant C was a driver for the 2GB star broadcaster when Jones allegedly touched his penis and kissed him, C has told Downing Centre local court.
The former broadcaster has pleaded not guilty to 20 indecent assault charges and two counts of sexual touching in relation to six men.
After the younger man left his job as a driver for Jones, the two continued to text each other in a way “inconsistent” with C feeling uncomfortable after the alleged incidents, defence barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC told the court on Tuesday.
But C disagreed during cross-examination by Bashir. “These are messages consistent with someone who had been groomed for 10 years, to think this was an acceptable way to talk with him,” the complainant said.
A text from C to Jones in 2015 read: “I’m a bachelor again. The Donkey is out.”
Asked why he would send a text referencing his penis to a man who allegedly touched his penis without his consent, C said on Tuesday: “I knew he would like to be spoken to like that.”
Bashir repeatedly put it to C that his explicit texts to Jones, sometimes instigated by the younger man, were not consistent with the broadcaster having assaulted him.
“I was a junior staffer 40 years younger than him,” C replied.
C was 18 when he started working at 2GB in the mid-2000s, he told the court last week. C said the unwanted touching began a few years later when he was a driver for Jones.
Bashir on Tuesday pointed to exchanges where both men were texting about the size of C’s penis, including a message where the younger man sent emojis of a winking face and an eggplant – which he agreed meant a penis – and the broadcaster said: “Fuck, I need to see the Donkey.”
C said in court that he did not like reading the messages from the mid-2010s. He became increasingly frustrated with the cross-examination.
“I sent those messages because I knew I never had to act on it,” he told the court.
“All my text messages are consistent with what he did to me and how I felt I needed to speak with him. I don’t like hearing a bloke 40 years older writing to a straight guy about wanting to play with his penis – get real.”
Asked why he maintained a relationship after he stopped working for Jones, C said: “Alan was still very, very powerful in our industry. Dare I say, he had more power than Ray Hadley.”
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At one stage, judge Glenn Walsh stopped the cross-examination and noted Bashir had put to the witness 16 times that the allegations were not true.
The court previously heard that in October 2019, C opened up to Jones’s rival 2GB broadcaster and told Hadley that Jones used to kiss him and touch his penis.
Bashir asked if C had reluctantly invited Jones, now aged 85, to his wedding and mentioned the broadcaster’s generosity in his wedding speech. The court heard Jones gave the complainant a $2,000 cheque as a wedding gift.
C explained he didn’t want to get Jones offside by not inviting him.
Bashir suggested to C that he was not “uncomfortable and anxious” as he had claimed when he met with Jones, and someone C worked for at Jones’s Circular Quay apartment.
The defence barrister said a contradictory text he sent to Jones at the same time as the meeting read: “I miss hanging out with you and seeing your face every day.”
C said his job working for a politician meant it was “important to keep that relationship with Alan – the sentiments were not genuine”.
“I never would have told Alan that I was uncomfortable and anxious,” C told the court.
The trial before judge Walsh continues.
