‘He said no’: a mother’s testimony exposes the fault line in the Alan Jones trial
The mother of Complainant J has told Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court her son first denied the broadcaster touched him, then reversed himself a year later — a sequence at the centre of the defence case.
A question put in December
In December 2024, after news reports of Alan Jones’ arrest, a mother asked her son whether the broadcaster had ever touched him. He answered no. The exchange, described by the woman on Thursday afternoon at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court, came as the trial opened into 20 counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual touching against Jones, who has pleaded not guilty to allegations involving six male complainants.
The woman is the mother of Complainant J, a former promising athlete who alleges Jones grabbed his penis and kissed him without consent during a series of incidents in the broadcaster’s car, his Circular Quay home and a Fitzroy Falls farm in the early to mid-2000s. Nine of the counts relate to J alone.
She told the court she was “in shock” — not at the question, but at what came later. Her son’s flat denial in December 2024 matched what he had told her for years. Then he changed his account.
The reversal, one year on
About a year after the December 2024 conversation, J told his mother he had lied. “Then a year later, (J) told me that it did happen,” she said. Her reply, as she recounted it: “I’m sorry that happened, I should have protected you.”
The sequence matters to the defence. Jones’ barrister Michael Burke has built part of the case around the idea that J’s account hardened over time — that the man who told his own mother nothing happened in December 2024 only came forward later. The mother’s testimony undercuts the prosecution’s suggestion that J disclosed consistently and early.
J, in his own evidence, denied that his initial denial to his mother reflected the truth. The court has not yet heard why he told her he lied, or what prompted the year-later confession. The mother’s evidence ended with her sitting in the witness box, having offered the court a parent’s version of events: first she was told nothing happened, then she was told it did.
The loungeroom disclosure
J’s former girlfriend gave evidence that during the time of the alleged incidents, in her loungeroom, J told her he was “going through a lot” and that “Alan Jones has been touching me”. The couple broke up in the mid-2000s but reconnected years later. When J came forward to police, the woman spoke to detectives and agreed to give a statement about the loungeroom conversation.
Jones’ barrister Gabrielle Bashir SC put it to the woman that no such conversation ever took place — that the loungeroom disclosure was a concoction. “I suggest there was no such conversation,” Bashir said. “It did happen,” the woman replied.
The court also heard that in early 2024 the former girlfriend was ordered to pay a fine of more than $1000. Bashir suggested she was in need of financial assistance at the time. The woman denied it: “No, I didn’t need financial help.”
‘I promise to look after you’
A text message J sent his ex-partner after he came forward to police became a focal point of Thursday’s cross-examination. The message read: “I promise to look after you.” Bashir suggested the line was an offer of financial reward in exchange for supporting J’s account — particularly given J, in his evidence, denied planning to sue Jones in a civil court.
The former girlfriend said the thought “never crossed my mind” that J was promising money, but conceded “it does look like” he was. Bashir pressed: “I suggest it looks like that because that’s exactly what it was.” The woman again said no.
J has separately denied that the message amounted to an offer of payment. The exchange left the court with a text message whose plain reading and the sender’s stated intent sit at odds — a small piece of evidence the jury will have to weigh against the loungeroom disclosure and the mother’s testimony.
The coach’s view from the sideline
J’s former coach told the court he met Jones through the athlete, and that J met celebrities through the talkback host. As a young athlete, the coach said, J was “confident and forthright” and would raise concerns about sporting officials directly. “If (J) was in physical danger, you knew he could look after himself,” Jones’ barrister Michael Burke put to the coach. “Yes,” the coach agreed.
Years after J retired from sport, the coach helped organise a function and placed Jones and J at the same table. “As far as you knew everything was normal,” Burke asked. “Yes,” the coach replied. “They interacted as old friends would.” “Absolutely.”
The coach also testified that J never relayed any concerns about Jones to him — neither over the time of the alleged offences nor at the function years later. The evidence gives the defence a witness who saw the two men together after the alleged incidents and observed nothing amiss.
What the jury still has to hear
The trial resumes on Friday with the second complainant, a man known only as “C”. The charges against Jones span 20 counts of indecent assault and two of sexual touching, involving six complainants. Nine counts relate to J alone.
The prosecution’s case rests on the accounts of men who say Jones groped and kissed them without consent, and on the witnesses who say they were told about it at the time — the loungeroom conversation, the mother’s shock. The defence has countered with a denial from J to his own mother in December 2024, a coach who saw nothing unusual, and a text message that reads like an offer.
Neither side has yet put its full case. The mother’s testimony, the coach’s account and the ex-girlfriend’s firm “It did happen” are the first pieces of a record that will stretch across weeks, with five more complainants still to come.