Judge rejects intimidation claim as Jones defence grills witness on finances

Inside a Sydney courtroom on Thursday, a judge made a decision that would shape how the defence could press its case against Alan Jones. The prosecutor had objected strenuously—the defence team, she argued, was intimidating a witness. The judge disagreed. What followed was a window into how a high-stakes trial unfolds when one side believes the other is manufacturing doubt through financial pressure.

Jones, a prominent broadcaster, is on trial before Judge Glenn Walsh on 20 counts of indecent assault and two of sexual touching. Six people have come forward with allegations spanning years. The first complainant, referred to in court as J, had testified the previous week that he reported the alleged assaults to police in 2024, decades after they supposedly occurred, because he wanted his child to understand the difference between right and wrong. He had also told his high school girlfriend about the allegations when they were teenagers in the mid-2000s. That girlfriend was now in the witness box.

On Thursday, Jones's barrister, Gabrielle Bashir SC, pursued a specific theory: the ex-girlfriend had fabricated the story of J's disclosure to her. The motive, Bashir suggested, was financial. She read messages to the court in which J had told the girlfriend he would "promise" to look after her after she gave her statement to police. Bashir interpreted this as a financial arrangement. The witness rejected the characterization. She said J simply wanted to tell his truth. The idea that money had changed hands or been promised—it had never crossed her mind, she testified, and she knew J hadn't meant it that way either.

Then Bashir produced a document: a $1,200 fine the ex-girlfriend had received two years earlier. Prosecutor Georgina Wright stood up immediately. This was intimidation, she said. The defence was trying to "besmirch" the witness by suggesting she had financial desperation that would motivate her to lie. The fine wouldn't prove financial motive, Wright argued. The judge allowed it anyway. Walsh said the questioning was relevant to the defence theory that both J and his ex-girlfriend had fabricated evidence for money. "The air should be cleared between parties," he said, noting the trial would likely run for months.

When asked about the fine, the witness acknowledged it had been significant at the time. She also conceded it had required her to attend a 12-month program with financial consequences attached. Bashir pressed further: hadn't she been working on maintaining her sobriety? Yes. Then financial help would have been welcome, wouldn't it? No, the witness said. She didn't need it.

The core of her testimony remained unchanged. Twenty years ago, she remembered a late-night conversation with J in which he told her: "Alan Jones has touched me inappropriately." She described him as embarrassed, unable to meet her eye, his head down as he spoke. She had asked if he wanted to report it. He said no, firmly. Bashir suggested repeatedly that this conversation had never happened. The witness held her ground. "No, I remember that clearly," she said.

The trial has also revealed shifts in the prosecution's timeline. The crown originally alleged Jones kissed and touched J during a trip to Fitzroy Falls sometime in 2004. But inconsistencies in witness testimony about when this happened led the judge to expand the window: the incidents may have occurred anytime between January 2004 and April 2006, meaning J could have been between 18 and 21 years old at the time. The trial continues, with months of proceedings still ahead.