source : the age
Warning: graphic content
The specificity was described with calm legalese, in clinical tones removed from the subject matter.
“How long was that happening, where your penises were in contact with each other?” prosecutor Georgina Wright, SC, asked the man known to the court as complainant “J”.
“It was … between five and 10 seconds,” he replied, appearing live via video link.
Alan Jones has been a man of many titles, but now he is reduced to just one: defendant.
He sat in court for the second day of what is scheduled to be months of hearings into the indecent assault and sexual touching charges against him.
He was pristine in a sky-blue blazer and aubergine trousers, his walking cane resting beside him, notepad and pen at the ready.
He watched the screen intently.
“It was skin on skin, in that moment,” “J” continued.
He paused.
“I will just replay it. I was not fully erect at that time, it was slightly, if you go flat …”
He gestured with his hand to convey the angle.
Prosecutor Wright thought that gesture conveyed about a “135-degree angle”, but Judge Glenn Walsh demurred.
“I would have said 45-degree angle,” he said.
The details of indecent assault involve a lot of what theatre people call “blocking”.
Whose hand was where, and where did it move to? How many seconds did a kiss last? Who took the underpants off, or were they already down when the touching started?
The Jones trial is no different. The choreography of the alleged offending is of utmost importance, and the second day of evidence from “J” involved extremely graphic detail.
It was invasive and undignified, and in the context of the court, it was stripped of all emotion.
“J”, recounting the occasion Jones allegedly invited him to his luxury Fitzroy Falls estate, said that during dinner, his host told him: “There is only one rule – there are no rules”.
‘He opened it [the robe] up and he looked at me and said: “I said, the robe and nothing else”.’
“J” gives evidence at Alan Jones’ trial
No rules, sure. But some orders were to be obeyed, according to the evidence of “J”.
After they finished eating, “J” alleged Jones told him to go shower and change into a robe “and nothing else”.
As “J” left the room, Jones reiterated his command, calling after him: “The robe and nothing else!”
Jones was around 63 years old at the time. “J” was about 18 or 19. He changed into the robe but kept his underpants on.
Later, on the lounge, when Jones went to touch “J”’s penis, he reproached him.
“He opened it [the robe] up and he looked at me and said: “I said, the robe and nothing else.”
“J” was contrite.
“I said ‘I’m sorry’,” he told the court.
That’s when Jones indecently assaulted him, for the second time that evening, according to “J”.
This time, “J” spoke up and told his benefactor he “wasn’t comfortable with that”.
Jones stopped. Relieved, “J” went to bed, only to hear a tapping on his door, minutes later.
Jones, who vehemently denies all charges, showed no sign of shame or humiliation as “J” detailed what he alleged happened next – a hug, a buttock squeeze and then an alleged act of parallel masturbation.
“J” remembered the shadow Jones cast as he moved around the bed, through a shaft of light, to get to him.
“It was another trapped moment. I was completely frozen,” “J” said.
“I thought, ‘If I just do this, and I do this myself, it’s just going to be over. I can get to the shower and clean myself up’. I could prevent him from being near me or from touching me.”
“J” gave his evidence cogently and with detail.
He recalled which hand the defendant held a glass of wine in. He remembered the “smart” white shoes he bought after Jones lambasted his appearance and thrust cash in his hand to go buy something decent.
He remembered the stress of a credit card bill, and Jones telling him he would pay it.
“Your problems are my problems,” Jones reassured him, “J” said.
He remembered having a hit on the Fitzroy Falls tennis court with a fellow guest, who thrashed him.
“I just thought he was some guy who was hitting winners,” he said.
‘What the defendant was doing was wrong. I know it was wrong.’
“J” on why he came forward to police
It turned out the guy, who was named in court, was “one of the greatest tennis players we have ever produced”.
“J” did have some memory troubles, occasionally stopping to ask if he could close his eyes to envision the scene he was being prompted to recall.
“I try to really focus as much as I can,” he told the court.
“I close my eyes and I take myself all the way back.”
When defence counsel Gabrielle Bashir, SC, began her cross-examination of “J”, she seemed to be leading evidence to show his memory was, indeed, faulty.
She directed him to 2023 news reports in The Sydney Morning Herald about allegations against Jones which contained similar details to the ones “J” gave when he contacted police the following year.
“J” denied his memory had been tainted. He said he had not read much about the Jones allegations because he was trying to “distance” himself from the matter.
“I haven’t seen or read or seen any of the specifics and I still haven’t,” he told Bashir.
“I don’t know anything about these people.”
Earlier, at the conclusion of his evidence in chief, “J” was asked by Wright why he decided to come forward to police in 2024, after Jones’ arrest, more than a decade after he cut him off financially and they had ceased contact.
He paused for several seconds before speaking.
“I’m going to be 100 per cent honest. I feel like I’m here because I haven’t been able to say no and stand up for the right thing and do the right thing,” he told the court, with emotion.
“I’m a father now. I am a proud dad, and I want to teach my daughter right from wrong. What the defendant was doing was wrong. I know it was wrong.”
The defendant, sitting in court, was not watching the complainant on screen as he said that.
He tilted his chin upwards and stared into the middle distance.
Jones, who is now 85, vehemently denies all the charges.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
