A young driver for Alan Jones felt “violated” and “trapped” when the broadcaster allegedly touched him on the penis in the car and kissed him in a lift, but didn’t complain due to the “extraordinary” power dynamic between the pair, a Sydney court has been told. Complainant C, now aged in his 40s, on Friday told Jones’s indecent assault trial that interactions between the pair escalated over time. C, who was 18 when he started working at 2GB in the mid-2000s, told Downing Centre local court the unwanted touching began a few years later, in the car and a lift at the radio host’s harbourside apartment.
Jones has pleaded not guilty to 20 charges of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching against six complainants. The alleged victim told the court he felt “deeply, deeply embarrassed” when colleagues said they saw Jones groping his penis under the table at a function in Mosman. C said Jones instructed him to sit next to him and spent the entire lunch with his left hand under the table and either on his leg or on his penis over his pants.
Prosecutor Georgina Wright asked: “Did [the colleague] have any look on his face? I know that sounds like a simplistic way of putting it, but they all made jokes about Alan being interested in young men.” Asked why he didn’t move his hand away, C said: “If I moved his hand it would draw attention to me and I didn’t want people to know what was happening”. On the way back to the car after lunch the colleague, speaking in a joking tone, said to C: “You copped a feel under the table, did you like it?” Asked how he felt by Wright, C said “deeply, deeply embarrassed”.
C said: “My reaction was embarrassment. I don’t recall what I said because I was really, really, really embarrassed.” The young man said he aspired to be a producer but was required to make the 2GB host’s breakfast of soft-boiled eggs with bread soldiers, clean his bathroom at the radio station and iron underpants. He was “star-struck” when the broadcaster offered to pay him $40,000 a year to be his driver, C told the court.
Complainant C, the second alleged victim to give evidence at the trial, told the court he grew up listening to talkback radio and all he ever wanted to do was work at a radio station. But, C said, he did not want to be a chauffeur or a butler. After the show ended each day, he drove Jones home, the court was told.
C wanted to go back and work at the radio station but was often required to complete household tasks under the direction of Jones’s butler. He said he was given the smaller items to iron, including handkerchiefs and underpants. He was given a foot in the door by fellow shock jock Ray Hadley, who paid him for three months out of his own pocket before he secured full-time employment.
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