source : the age
Warning: Graphic content
Hello and thank you for reading our live coverage of Alan Jones’ criminal trial in the Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney. I will be bringing you the latest developments today with my colleagues Clare Sibthorpe and Harriet Alexander.
Former 2GB heavyweight Ray Hadley, a long-time colleague of Jones, started giving evidence in the trial on Tuesday. He returns to the witness box today.
Jones, 85, is standing trial on 20 counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching without consent spanning six complainants and a 17-year period from 2003 to 2020. He denies the allegations.
Hadley’s evidence relates to a conversation he had with one of the complainants, a man known as “C”, in 2019. Here are the key parts of his testimony so far.
- Hadley said complainant “C” told him in 2019 that Jones had “put his hand on my c— and kissed me” on a number of occasions some years earlier.
- “I asked him if he was homosexual, and whether he was consenting to it,” Hadley said. “He broke down and cried and said, ‘no, I hated it. I’m not homosexual’.”
- Hadley said he comforted “C” during the conversation and told him it was not his fault. He offered to take the complainant to the police, he said, but “C” had insisted he did not want to do this because Jones was “too powerful”.
- Hadley told the court that author and journalist Peter FitzSimons, a journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald, had been investigating allegations against Jones and that he facilitated a phone call between “C” and FitzSimons in 2019.
- At this stage the complainant’s identity was kept secret from FitzSimons and the allegations were not reported, the court has heard.
- In 2023 the Herald’s chief investigative reporter Kate McClymont spoke to “C”, the court heard, and his allegations were published in an anonymised form. Hadley agreed he discussed the article on air.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
Bashir asked Hadley if he informed police that, following the 2GB staff member’s allegations, he went and “said things” to Jones.
Hadley responded: “I did give him a partial piece of advice.”
Bashir put to him that he told police that he said to Jones that he was a “c— and a dog”.
“It’s quite likely I said that,” Hadley replied.
Bashir told him they were his words that he wrote in a document to police.
Hadley has testified that a 2GB employee told him in about 2019 that Alan Jones had “marshalled the troops and said, ‘dig up some dirt on Hadley’.”
He gave that evidence after being taken to a story aired on the ABC’s 7.30 program in April 2019.
Jones’ barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC, asked if it was a particularly challenging time for him but he said it was no more challenging than anything else that happened over his 20 years at 2GB.
He agreed he went to police to inform them of a matter involving a 2GB staff member.
Ray Hadley said the only person outside a small group who knew of the contract he had signed to take over the breakfast radio slot from Alan Jones was talkback host Chris Smith, who “accosted me in the bathroom and then went up and checked the cubicles”.
Hadley said that, having cleared the bathroom, Smith then said to him, “I hear you’re doing breakfast”.
“A radio station like 2GB was full of rumours flowing through the corridor. Rumours and gossip was what dictated how radio worked and still does today.”
Bashir pressed Hadley on his reasoning for signing the contract for Jones’ breakfast slot, suggesting it was not just about the money.
Hadley assured her that after getting up at 3.30am for many years, the prospect of getting up at 1.30am was not very attractive, but the money was.
He said John Singleton, then a major shareholder of the company that owned 2GB, told him he’d had enough of Jones and his defamation cases and offered him the job.
“I didn’t pursue it, they came to me,” he said.
Asked if it was a secret contract, Hadley said, “it was indeed”.
Bashir and Hadley have had a tense exchange about Hadley’s ambitions to take over Jones’ 2GB breakfast slot in 2019.
Hadley said he signed a “secret contract” in December 2018 that would mean he would take over the breakfast slot from July 1, 2019. He said 2GB doubled his salary.
He rejected a suggestion by Bashir that he saw the breakfast slot as the pinnacle of radio positions, saying his increase in value from $2 million to $4 million was the pinnacle.
“The money made me do it,” he said.
Hadley has returned to the witness box after a legal argument that began when the Crown objected to a question by Alan Jones’ barrister.
Gabrielle Bashir, SC, is now questioning Hadley about his knowledge of the complainant’s career after he stopped working as a staffer to Alan Jones.
Less than five minutes into the defence’s cross-examination of Ray Hadley, the former 2GB heavyweight has been asked to leave the courtroom.
As has become routine over the past month in courtroom 3.1, Judge Glenn Walsh has paused witness testimony amid legal argument between the parties.
We’ll let you know when the issues are resolved and Hadley is back in the box.
Beginning her cross-examination, defence barrister Gabrielle Bashir, SC, has asked Ray Hadley about his relationship with complainant “C”.
Hadley agreed that he maintained a close relationship with “C” over several decades.
Ray Hadley has started and finished his evidence-in-chief after some early legal argument.
He gave two bows to Judge Glenn Walsh as he entered, and the judge said he had no doubt that Hadley would keep his voice up after his clear enunciation the day before. Hadley gave a brief nod.
After brief questions from prosecutor Georgina Wright, SC, complainant “C” is now being cross-examined by Jones’s barrister, Gabrielle Bashir, SC.
Prosecutor Georgina Wright, SC, is taking Hadley to his statement to police dated June 25, 2024.
She asks him to read to himself a small part of the statement before turning the document over so that he can’t read it further.
He agrees that it has helped refresh his memory about what “C” told him about Jones allegedly kissing him in the lift.
“I recall there were two lifts mentioned, and a home mentioned,” Hadley said.
